Today I’m reviewing Satoshi Kon’s Paprika!
Paprika, otherwise Atsuko Chiba, is a psychotherapist who uses the DC Mini, a dream-sharing device invented by Kosaku Tokita. One day the DC Mini is stolen from the lab, and cases begin to occur in which it is abused to force a way into other people’s dreams, show them nightmares and break their minds. Atsuko and the others go looking for the culprit’s identity and aim, and for a way out of the nightmare that never ends.
He gave us masterpieces such as Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers, and Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika were all picked as contenders for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
His work has influenced a great many other films too — the Hollywood film Black Swan is said to have taken Perfect Blue as its source, and Inception is said to have been influenced by Paprika as well.
A wonderful figure like that, and yet he died in 2010, at just 46.
Personally I think he was one of the top 3 anime film directors in the world, and I think that if he were still alive he’d have become the sort of giant who carries Japanese cinema forward. Terribly sad.
The animation is genuinely lovely. The outlines of the characters, the axes their bodies turn on — beautiful enough that you wonder whether they traced live-action footage!!
And then the expressions!!
The movement of the eyes, the wrinkles — supremely well done!
And this scene near the end!
The film takes dreams as its theme, so there are scenes of madness like this one in it lol
That staging and the music above are fused together to the absolute limit, and it gives off an atmosphere all of its own.
I’m a bit busy, so I’ll stop here for today, but it’s a film I love, so I recommend it!
On July 24, 202…