Decoder – Definitive [DVD] [1984]

Martin Montag

at 1:39 pm

Review by Martin Montag for Decoder – Definitive [DVD] [1984]
Rating: (4 / 5)
A German art horror enigma which takes me back to my early teens when youth culture contained a noticeable number of alternative types sporting post-punk and new-wave hair styles and fashion, not available in any corporate highstreet outlet, myself included. I’d almost forgotten what inspired individuality used to look like. Filmed in 1984 with Orwellian and Burroughsian zeitgeist fears and concerns the film chronicles a techno-shiny yet sleazy corporate organisation tracking potential subversive citizens via CCTV on blocks of computerized monitors in sterile monolithic towers of control. With their top agent William Rice slowly going loco and slipping his masters message leash “in sleazy sin city” plugged in as he is to the totalitarian machine of hypocrisy.

Featuring cameos from William S Burroughs and Genesis P Orridge as outlaws of the underground struggling against nefarious forces of mono-culture, whilst assisting central protagonist and eponymous Decoder FM Einhert who has uncovered a brainwashing technique played into corporate slave makers H-Burger via piped mind programming muzak they play in their outlets which help to addict the user subverting them to surrender personality, taste and individual identity to the insipid fuzzy logic of one-size-fits-all labelling. High-lights include author Christiane F as a most fetching proto-goth with a love of frogs, surrounded as she is by them in her apartment, whilst prospective audio transformed prince- FM, attempts to pass on the message, but can’t seem to break through her predominant lizard brain introspection. Stock footage of street rebellion, paramilitary and police laying down the batons of fear fuelled hate against waves of visible minorities, banners for media supposition of unlawfulness justifying the machine, levers in a patina of authenticity, which seem all the more prescient twenty six years on.

The soundtrack mostly composed by Dave Ball and featuring amongst others Matt Johnson and Soft Cell’s Seedy Films, played three times no less, (shame the more pertinent Persuasion and Metro MRX weren’t used.) The DVD comes with a CD which features music from the film and strangely some not, offering an alternate ambient landscape, makes for a compelling walk track.