Country:
Japan
Recognizable Voices:
None
Directed By:
Satoshi Kon
I don't like to throw the word "genius" around like it was some kind of airborne virus. There are a few artistic geniuses in Japan though. Writers and filmmakers who can express the tiniest, most pinpoint emotion, by using strong and clear images. I was first acquainted with the genius of Satoshi Kon through his Alfred Hitchcock/David Lynch inspired PERFECT BLUE. I was also charmed by his MILLENIUM ACTRESS and TOKYO GODFATHERS afterwards. I meant to watch PAPRIKA forever, but something about the colourful cover turned me down many times when I had the movie in my hands at the video club. It came to me recently that Satoshi Kon died from cancer last year at only forty-six years old. Like Fitzgerald, he died tooyoung and left an unfinished work behind him. So I watched PAPRIKA. Was I disappointed? Hell no. This movie lives up to Satoshi Kon's legend.
If you're already familiar with the director, you know the story won't be a walk in the park. This is pretty complex and requires your complete attention. There's been a breakthrough in psychotherapy. The Mini DC is a machine that allows you to record and view your dreams and with enough experience, to play with them. The technology is fresh and there are still only controlled testing going on. The two inventors are nerdy manchildren Tokita and Himuro. When the latter goes missing, experiments with the Mini DC are starting to go wrong. Testers are starting to have the recurring dream of a demented parade that seems to be Himuro's. They are starting to have hallucinations outside the Mini DC and an unknown force is looking to swallow their psyche to augment its powers. It's up to Dr. Chiba and her dream alter-ego Paprika to sort this out.
PAPRIKA is actually a very good introduction to the concept of metafiction, if you're not familiar with it. It's a story, within a story, within a story. It's not the first time Satoshi Kon gives into metafiction, but never before it was achieved with such strength and clarity. PAPRIKA is like that dream you keep waking up from, only to realize you're still sleeping. There are nice and playful winks to cinema with the character of Detective Kogawa, who's dreaming about a movie who he has made a long time ago with a mysterious friend (that eerily looks like Akira Kurosawa) and when his dreams are invaded by the demented parade, he literally breaks the fourth wall of cinema to save Paprika from her fate. It's a celebration of the power of films and dreams and a frightening portrait of how people can be prisoner of their own mind.
While it was a very difficult intellectual workout to watch PAPRIKA, I can't really think of anything bad to say about it. It's kept short and compact (ninety minutes) and there's no real self-indulgent moments. The only negative thing I'd have to say in that review is that I lost some respect for Chris Nolan during my viewing of PAPRIKA. Quite a bit of cool images in INCEPTION are blatant ripoffs of PAPRIKA. The conscience-elevator going through the dream layers, the view from the warped city, the scenery that breaks into pieces. That's not even subtle (especially the elevator part). PAPRIKA is a stronger, clearer and sharper movie than INCEPTION, so it's a little upsetting to see a product diluted like this. Nevertheless, if you can stomach anime, you will find PAPRIKA to have the crazy Japanese creativity without giving into the cliches of the genre (magic, school girls, etc.) I will say that PAPRIKA is to Satoshi Kon, what TENDER IS THE NIGHT was to Fitzgerald. A haunting last chapter.
SCORE: 85%