One of the saner moments in Paprika, another mind-melting animated effort from director Satoshi Kon
In a 2003 interview promoting Tokyo Godfathers, director Satoshi Kon lamented the boundaries forced onto animation’s limitless potential by those in the industry. “In the end, it’s all about cute girls, robots and explosions,” he says. “That’s not right.”
While Kon’s limited body of work has incorporated some of these elements, it’s his unconventional and intelligent approach to their employment that has made his name a buzz word in anime. His latest film, Paprika, is no exception, and stands as a boundless, visual feast that doesn’t disappoint, elevating Kon closer to anime godhood despite his young career.
The film’s story follows Atsuko Chiba, a clinically detached psychologist heading the development of the DC Mini, a device which allows one to enter a patient’s dreams and possibly provide a breakthrough in psychiatric treatment. Atsuko is also using the DC Mini outside the research facility to illegally treat patients through her antithetical alter ego Paprika, a perky 18-year-old dream detective. When three prototypes of the device are stolen from its creator, the corpulent Dr. Tokita, Atsuko-Paprika sets out to find the culprit, as the DC Mini is capable of accessing the dreams of therapy patients and altering their personalities whether they’re asleep or awake.
What ensues is gleeful madness, as the gifted animators at Madhouse Studios slip off the leash and flex their creative muscles with dancing furniture, homicidal dolls and a marching band of frogs, cats and pigs. Paprika isn’t all eye candy, though. The characters’ psychological complexities belie their two-dimensional status, and the plot is exceedingly well paced.
As in his previous films, Perfect Blue and Paranoia Agent, Kon explores his signature theme of blurring reality and fantasy, cleverly transitioning back and forth until the characters and audience are left to cautiously separate truth from illusion. The story also affords Kon the opportunity to dispense a few observational gems on the state of advancing technology and ethics without sacrificing entertainment value, unlike director Mamoru Oshii and his Ghost in the Shell films.
Paprika is a Freudian funfest — a perfect marriage of the fluid animation and intelligent writing one expects from Kon. As for what the director has up his sleeve next, anime geeks can only dream. Although, a few cute girls and an exploding robot or two wouldn’t hurt.
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