Paprika (2006)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Paprika (2006) – S. Kon

To be honest, I haven’t really watched much anime, apart from the most famous of Studio Ghibli films.  So, I thought I would give it a try with this bizarre offering from director Satoshi Kon (who also directed Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers).  The plot involves a high-tech device that allows therapists (or anyone) to enter a person’s dreams, presumably to better understand them.  But the opportunity for mischief is there…and when the device is stolen, all hell breaks loose.  And in fact, what starts out as a mystery (find the thief) with a made-to-order comic book cop (with flat-top), starts to come apart at the seams as reality and dreams begin to blur.  One of the key scientist-developers, Dr Chiba, also has an alter-ego, Paprika, a young girl who is at home in people’s dreams and is able to solve problems there (often in magical ways).  Soon the bad guys are clearly revealed and the psychedelic battle begins and my brain started to hurt.  Instead of the plot resolving itself all nicely-nicely, things got more and more chaotic and less straightforward.  When the ending did come (tying up some loose ends), I couldn’t really care too much anymore.  That said, the animation itself is a marvel to look at, in that typical Japanese style, and takes full advantage of a story that likely couldn’t be filmed in any traditional way. Perhaps too there is a warning here about technology dominating our reality (that hasn’t been heeded 12 years later).