Film Review<\/p>\n
PAPRIKA
\nReviewed by Lyle Sylvander<\/p>\n
(Summer 2007)<\/p>\n <\/span>Satoshi Kon\u2019s latest film Paprika, is a feast for the eyes and intellect, a combination not commonly found in mass-marketed His previous feature, Tokyo Godfathers, was dramatically static and its earthbound narrative undoubtedly imprisoned the active Like his compatriot Hiyao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl\u2019s Moving Castle), Satoshi Kon proves the superiority of Japanese hand-drawn Based on a novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, the plot hinges on a high-tech gadget called the \u201cDC Mini,\u201d which enables doctors to record and While this set-up is straightforward, the film takes drastic twists and turns. It turns out that the DC Mini can do more than just record As one of anime\u2019s most cinema-savvy auteurs, Satoshi fills Paprika with unlimited filmic references.\u00a0 It opens with a Fellini-esque Satoshi seems to suggest that the movies (particularly those from Hollywood) have so colonized our minds, both in their conscious This dark universe is not without its silver lining, however.\u00a0 Paprika and Konakawa exhibit an awareness of their inner demons and are Whatever one thinks of this film, one will not soon forget it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Film Review PAPRIKA Reviewed by Lyle Sylvander (Summer 2007) Satoshi Kon\u2019s latest film Paprika, is a feast for the eyes and intellect, a combination not commonly found in mass-marketed entertainment. His previous feature, Tokyo Godfathers, was dramatically static and its earthbound narrative undoubtedly imprisoned the active imagination seen in the earlier Millennium Actress and Perfect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":59,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-374","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t
\nentertainment.<\/p>\n
\nimagination seen in the earlier Millennium Actress and Perfect Blue.\u00a0 Paprika, on the other hand, frees Satoshi from gravitational
\nreality as he explores the nether reaches of unconscious dream states and nightmares.<\/p>\n
\nanimators over all others.\u00a0 The surreal, eye-candy visuals put the product coming out of Hollywood to shame.\u00a0 Those annoyingly cute
\nCGI animals from the West Coast simply don\u2019t hold a candle to the marching toasters, drumming frogs, evil dolls and walking Shinto
\ngate (seriously!) that populate Paprika\u2019s universe.\u00a0 Indeed, the animator has larger and more serious things to say about the influence
\nof pop culture on the human psyche and its confluence with more traditional and universal primordial images \u2013 subject matter rarely
\nexplored in commercial cinema.<\/p>\n
\nwitness patients\u2019 dreams.\u00a0 One is stolen from the psychiatric hospital where it was invented and most of the film follows the attempts
\nby Dr. Atsuko Chiba (Megumi Hayashibara), Dr. Kosauku Tokita (Toro Furuya) and detective Toshimi Konakawa (Akio Ohtsuka) to
\nrecover the machine and find the culprit.<\/p>\n
\ndreams as the thief uses the device to invade dreams of others.\u00a0 As the dream\/waking life boundary becomes more and more blurred
\nand eventually shatters, the everyday world becomes encapsulated by one large collective nightmare.\u00a0 While there are no doubt
\nunlimited Freudian and Jungian motifs and themes to be found, there is too much information to absorb in one sitting.\u00a0 Although
\nrepeated viewings would present intellectual benefit for the academically inclined, it is best to observe the outstanding animation
\nand surreal narrative without making too much sense of it.<\/p>\n
\ncircus sequence, complete with sinister clowns and doppelgangers.\u00a0 When Konakawa escapes from this, he lands in a film-noirish
\ncityscape populated by gangsters,\u00a0 He flees once again and transforms into Tarzan (with an obvious allusion to the Disney version),
\nswinging away on tree vines.\u00a0 His real-life persona is even modeled on the classic hard boiled detective type (a la Dirty Harry).
\nSimilarly, the nerdy Dr. Chiba\u2019s avatar is the athletic Paprika, a variation on countless \u201cvigilante women\u201d found in anime.\u00a0 At one point,
\nPaprika sprouts wings like Tinkerbell, but is soon pinned to a table like a butterfly in an insect collection. In another sequence, Dr.
\nChiba and Konakawa visit a restaurant where each floor resembles a movie theme.\u00a0 The Tarzan jungle reappears and there are floors
\ndedicated to romantic movies, suspense films and James Bond.<\/p>\n
\nand unconscious states, that their influence can no longer be expurgated.\u00a0 Furthermore, the film pulsates with a sense of unease, as if
\nthe melding of our minds with pop culture and technology has disrupted our sense of moral values.\u00a0 Satoshi\u2019s most searing indictment
\noccurs when the heads of uniformed schoolgirls turn into giant mobile phones.\u00a0\u00a0 They take photos of kneeling salary men who are
\npeering up at their skirts and shout \u201clet\u2019s capture the moment!\u201d with high-pitched glee.<\/p>\n
\nable to harness an inner morality that anchors the surrounding chaos.\u00a0 By bombarding our sites with a\u00a0 cacophony of beautifully
\nsurreal hallucinations, Satoshi also brightens this world \u2013 the underlying tension between the attractiveness of the images and their
\nunderlying threat invests the film with an aura of fascination.<\/p>\n