In 1989, West Germany is a country that has been “pacified” both politically and socially; public opinion is dictated entirely by a single media conglomerate. When the company’s high-rise headquarters faces a bomb threat, police detective Jansen is called in to investigate. While questioning the executives and employees, he learns of a mysterious 31st floor in the building. What is the relationship between the hidden storey’s residents and an opposition group that uses the nom de guerre “Krysmopompas”? ... Video equipment is ubiquitous in this garish science-fiction farce. The detective in his leopard-print suit carries a tape recorder in a shoulder case and wears a ring with a built-in camera. The intentionally “grungy” visuals were the basis of a new-wave aesthetic that also encompassed colourful neon lights, a sound collage including transmissions from the Apollo space missions and buildings that represented West German “concrete brutalism”. The film unites those elements into a contemporary “no future” atmosphere. Co-writer Robert Katz said, “Rainer Werner Fassbinder as Jansen embodies the kamikaze’s lack of any future. And the absence of a future, in turn, signifies the absence of a message”.