Greetings gentle readers and welcome to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today it’s a delightful, trippy animated fantasy, Paprika:
(Sorry for the ugly thumbnail!)
and next week’s film, Defamation:
Reviews of Paprika:
2DAniCritic says:
When I first started exploring anime seriously, I quickly came across the 2006 film “Paprika,” which at the time would be one of my personal favorite films of all time. I don’t think I’m alone. Much like how director Satoshi Kon’s first film “Pefect Blue” is rumored to be an inspiration to the live-action Hollywood film “Black Swan,” “Paprika” is considered a direct influence on the 2010 American blockbuster “Inception” (and most likely inspired the 2009 Swedish film “Pepperminta,” which an art teacher of mine liked to reference). Think about that. How many foreign films, much less animated films, could inspire other film makers so quickly? That is the power and appeal of anime, and specifically the respect Kon had already established for himself.
Anime Review says:
Paprika, directed by famed Japanese anime director Satoshi Kon, came out in 2006, four years before his death from pancreatic cancer; as a result, this wound up being his fourth and final feature film (his fifth production, Dreaming Machine, was never finished at the time of his passing; nor will it ever be released in the future). Inspired by Yasutaka Tsutsui’s eponymous 1993 novel, conceptually this film had been in the works for eight years, and faced production difficulties when Rex Entertainment, who financed Perfect Blue, went bankrupt – thus leading Kon to have famed studio Madhouse over the span of two years, releasing a month after the folks there brought Death Note out into the open.
With a heavy emphasis on the topic of illusions and reality, the film has received widespread fame and hailed as a perfect send-off to Satoshi Kon’s short, but illustrious career. Aside from winning three awards at several minor international film festivals, it is also known for having allegedly inspired the creation of Christopher Nolan’s 2010 mystery-thriller Inception on account of the shared themes, which, having watched both films I can definitely concur there’s something eerily familiar amongst them; though to its credit the latter is a lot more cleaner and less acid-trip inducing than Paprika.
My take: This is a splendid little film. It’s mind-bending, brilliantly drawn and colored, and great fun. The music is fantastic as well. The two story lines, one of the dream researchers’ travails and the other of the cop haunted by his past, are woven together skillfully. To the negative, the dubbing seems to have been less skillfully carried out but don’t let that slow you down. It pairs well with some good ganja and is definitely worth watching more than once if only to pick out all of the incredible details packed into it: ⭐⭐.
Director: Satoshi Kon
Writers: Seishi Minakami, Satoshi Kon
Plot (Spoilers!): Dr. Atsuko Chiba leads a double life. She is a dream researcher working on a fantastic new device, the DC Mini, which allows a person to view and interact with another’s dreams. She also uses the device to counsel patients on the sly. Aiding her in this is her dream personality, Paprika.
Then someone steals the DC Mini prototypes and chaos is unleashed. People’s dreams and their waking consciousnesses are being melted together with disastrous results. It turns out the thief is the director of Chiba’s institute, who sees himself as the savior of the dream world.
Insanity ensues, both in the waking world and in the dream world. The dreams spill over into reality, and the two dimensions begin to merge. People literally become their dreams. At the last minute, Chiba and Paprika combine to defeat the now monstrous director by consuming him. Normalcy is restored.
