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Chicago International Film Fest
Paprika (Satoshi Kon, Japan)
Adapted from a short story by acclaimed Japanese author Yasutaka Tsutsui, Paprika is a hallucinogenic microcosm of reality invaded by fantastical subconscious elements. Part science fiction thriller, part Being John Malkovich, Satoshi Kon (Tokyo Godfathers, Perfect Blue) presents a mind-blowing manipulation into the odyssey of the subconscious, replete with feverish intrusions and astonishing action sequences that could only be captured using animation.
Dr. Tokita (voiced by Toru Furuya), a gluttonous genius with a Peter Pan complex, has invented a radical device called the DC Mini, which allows users to enter into peoples’ dreams in order to assess and diagnose possible traumas that the dreams reveal. This experimental piece of equipment falls into the wrong hands, however, and soon the criminal masterminds have forced their way into the subconscious landscape of their victims, altering their dreams into gibberish delusions. As more and more people become trapped in the feverish nightmare world of the DC Mini, the lines between the conscious and subconscious are drastically blurred and begin to reign over the waking minds of innocent bystanders, as well as the scientists who can save them. An aloof, monochromatic Dr. Chiba (Megumi Hayashibara) and her sprightly Hello Kitty alter-ego Paprika (also Hayashibara) are the only ones who can save Tokyo from its rapidly diminishing mind-state.
Humorous references to movies pop up in the dream sequences, including a kind of movie ghost town where Tokyo Godfathers festers away in a boarded-up theater and where detective Konakawa (Akio Ohtsuka) offers lessons in cinematography while navigating his circus, chase-scene nightmare.
A spin-off on the age-old Science vs. God debate, the perpetrators of the DC Mini debacle (who are curiously referred to as “terrorists” and would probably be called “communists” if this film had come out a few decades earlier) attempt to put a stop to the technological meddling in peoples’ psyches by creating their own version of pseudo-reality, in which they of course are the supreme rulers. The cyclical yet erratic dream sequences perfectly mirror the nonsensical renderings of the subconscious and the (coincidentally named?) Madhouse animation studio puts forward an imaginative, psychedelic glimpse into the untapped fervor of the subliminal mind.
Some of the film’s smarts are trumped by the Godzilla vs. Megalon ending, where a genital-less, bald Professor Xavier-type villain is blown up to skyscraper proportions and blackens the city of Tokyo with grandiose rhetoric until our split-personality heroine, who starts off as a toddler, eats her way to maturity by gobbling up Xavier’s ashen landscape (and eventually Xavier too), thus restoring the city to its former self. The film’s ending doesn’t do justice to the disturbing psychological collapse of reality that it had been building up to. It’s certainly a wild ride, however, and Kon’s surreal adaptation pushes the boundaries of traditional Anime, as well as confounding the crippling security of our conscious and unconscious desires.
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