"DECODER"

Year: 1984
Running time: 89 min.
Language: English
Director: Muscha

Synopsis: Decoder is a legendary German cult film (from 1984) based on the writings and themes of William S. Burroughs. Burroughs himself acts in a key scene in the film, along with F.M. Einheit (Einstürzende Neubauten), Christiane F., Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) and underground film star Bill Rice.

The story of urban chaos and intrigue focuses on the sonic experiments of the disillusioned “noise freak” FM, who is experimenting with music and infra-sound (low-frequency noise). In search of new and extreme sounds he stumbles into a kind of black mass being celebrated by urban pirates. He is able to convince them to join him in his search for an antidote to muzak, as he discovers that the musical tranquilizer can become a brain poison. After distributing multiple copies of their anti-tape the urban pirates successfully induce nausea in H-Burger restaurants, not to the liking of their multinational headquarters who promptly dispatch a special agent to stop the tape-terrorism which spreads rapidly, leading to mass civil disobiedience and street fighting.

“Decoder presents a uniquely political interpretation of Burroughs’ work, and directly attributes the narrative’s central corners to his tape-recorder experiments. He only appears for a short time, yet he remains a powerful figure clearly present in the margins of the text.”

-Jack Sargeant in Naked Lens