Movie Review - Paprika
First of all, I have to admit that I am a huge fan of Satoshi Kon. He is probably my favorite anime director, and I consider his movie Millennium Actress the greatest film ever made. So it is only fair to say that I had a very high opinion for this film since it was first announced, and that this review will probably reflect that.
Paprika is Kon’s first fray into the science fiction genre. This is a story about a psychologist, Dr. Atsuko Chiba, who is able to explore her patients dreams thanks to new technology. She turns into her alter-ego, the cute and bubbly Paprika, within this dream world as a form of mental treatment. But then things go out of control with this treatment, leaving Chiba and her research team scrambling to locate the cause of the problem. As the dream world starts losing its stability, it begins to leave behind victims in the real world.
A trademark of a Satoshi Kon film is his ability to skew the line between reality and fantasy, leaving the viewer unable to distinguish between the two during some scenes. While this technique has been used to show mental instability in the past, it is used in this film to show the Freudian idea of hidden desires being exposed through dreams. Since the viewer is aware that these surreal elements are dreams, there is far less confusion and anxiety with understanding this film as there was in Perfect Blue and Paranoia Agent.
But since they are dreams, there are many beautiful images and symbols that speak so much about the Japanese and human psyche. One could just spend an entire viewing of the movie just trying to analyze the meaning behind the imagery. A parade of frogs, maneki nekos, dolls, action figures, shinto arches, and many other objects march throughout the dream world like a scene from a Studio Ghibli nightmare. One particular funny image is a group of cell phones representing high school girls, and another line of perverted camera phones taking “upskirt” shots of the school girl phones.
The movie has a very surreal but pretty techno song that plays during the film’s introduction and through out the climatic scenes. This adds to atmosphere of the piece while at the same time being very pleasant to the ears. You can hear this song being played in the film’s trailer, which is available here in HD and on the film’s website in flash.
Like Kon’s other works, the story is still a little difficult to understand during first viewing, which will have the viewer scratching their head as to what’s going on. But in the film’s final act, the story comes together into a reasonable and understandable ending.
So while this is not the best film that Satoshi Kon has ever made, fans of his will find Paprika to be worthy addition to his collection. Using surreal images to skew the worlds of reality and dreams, he provides a fantastic commentary into the psyche of the human mind. Newcomers may find a film incomprehensible and too weird for their tastes. But understand that this is a art-house film, and so should be considered as one going into it.
Paprika is currently being shown in New York City, and will open in LA this Friday. Check out the film’s website for more information on where and when you’ll be able to see it.
