paprika

Paprika was directed by a guy called Satoshi Kon.

Sadly, Satoshi Kon recently passed away. He was well known outside of Japan, particularly among anime fans, as a bit of an innovative genius. Satoshi Kon also directed a film called Perfect Blue, which was probably the first anime film I ever saw that told me anime could do proper films.

Well, that's not quite true - Akira was the first film to do it; Perfect Blue was the film that showed it wasn't a one off fluke.

Paprika has been on my rental list for a while, so when it recently turned up it was therefore tinged with a little bit of sadness.

The film does show flashes of that genius I was mentioning, but it's unfortunately not entirely a success. The problem, really, is it's shot through with a lot of techno-babble and a rather confused plot. The plot is also a little over-dense - it's adapted from a novel and has the feeling of trying to include too much in the time it has.

Paprika is essentially about dreams.

A device has been invented that seems to allow people to enter, control and manipulate their dreams at will. However, in doing so, the device also seems to enable a degree of mind control. The victims of this control then occupy a kind of waking dream state, where they're dreaming, but still running around - a bit like a kind of sleep-walking.

The good side of it is that this dream-world allows for a fluid grasp on reality that seems to suit animation and Satoshi Kon perfectly. The bad side is that the above plot is quite complicated and convoluted and there's a bit too much focus on the technology, and not quite enough on the people.

Which is a shame, as when the film is firing on all cylinders during the dream sequences, it's quite spectacular. Indeed, I'd whole-heartedly recommend catching it just for these bits alone.

There is one other criticism I would make, though - come of the voices don't really match the characters. In particular, the super-fat genius guy seems to have a too light, high pitched child-like voice and the main woman seems to have a bit too 'girly' a voice.

In the case of the fat guy, I think this is supposed to reflect his character, but both voices do just seem to jar with what's on screen. I dunno - it's difficult to explain, and these styles of voices are roughly carried over into the American dub, so I get the feeling it's deliberate, but for me it didn't quite work.