Paprika
Paprika (2006)
Direction:Satoshi Kon
Rating
***** 5/5
Summary
The movie is one of the greatest works by Satoshi Kon, this remains to be one of the most awesome psychological thrillers, I’ve ever seen.
The story is based on the novel of the same name, by Yasutaka Tsutsui the story revolves around the creation of new form of psycho-therapy, known as dream therapy. A device ‘DC Mini’, is made to facilitate this therapy allowing its users to share their dreams, together. The head of the team designing DC Mini , Dr. Atsuko Chiba, uses the machine illegally to help people outside the facility assuming an alter-ego of ‘Paprika’. The inventor of the DC Mini, Kōsaku Tokita, works with Atsuko, in the same facility.
Things start going haywire, when one of the DC Mini is stolen from the lab. The device being in prototype state still needs to be configured to restrict people from entering other’s dreams.
Not trying to spoil much of the story, I’ll write to like about the things that I liked in the movie. The movie revolves nicely around the concept of duality and I believe that to be one of the things that Satoshi Kon aims for since it seems to be pretty obvious from his other notable work, like Perfect Blue. The way how the camera plays with the reality is something that would be extremely difficult to do with the live-action sequences which is probably one of the reasons, Satoshi Kon stuck with animation. The movie does a really great work of interpreting the collision of the real world and the dream world, I guess the word on the grapevine is the fact Christopher Nolan was inspired from this movie, while creating Inception. The way Satoshi Kon plays with the concept of space and time is commendable. It seems to be a single flow of transition, with the viewer having no idea how everything started.The transitions seem to seem just in place, without the user ever noticing the difference in the scene. He also uses this to show the difference between the lives people show and the lives people live, allowing you to completely understand the character.
The soundtrack is again absolutely fascinating work done by Susumu Hirasawa, and I’m currently listening to “The Girl in Byakkoya - White Tiger Field” (白虎野の娘) and “Parade” (パレー ド). Susumu Hirasawa rose to fame after working with Satoshi Kon and developing the soundtrack for Berserk. Being highly experimental with his compositions, his score brings out the best of animation and the story line.
I thought of listing my favourite scenes but it seems the list just keeps growing to long.
Trailer
And here is the link.
Or watch it here if you like:
