Paprika

Though there are notable parallels between Paprika and Christopher Nolan’s Inception, they are not equivalents, partly because the world created by Satoshi Kon benefits from the malleable medium of animation! Led by the enigmatic Paprika, scientists behind the “DC Mini,” a device that allows the user to enter psychiatric patients’ dreams, search for a dream terrorist who is using the technology to infiltrate and destroy the minds of its victims. To find the culprit, they move rapidly through dream scenarios that defy the limits of time and space with the pacing and visual stimulation of an acid trip. With narrative and visual leaps, the film takes the audience on an amazing adventure into “Kon’s head-tripping anime universe ... [Paprika] is a warped hall of mirrors that leads by twists and turns to a mass urban nightmare à la Godzilla. Dreams and ‘reality’ – as if even Kon’s near-photographic drawing style could ever be mistaken for vérité – become indistinguishable. The movie comes on like a mix between a vintage surrealist short and a state-of-the-art blockbuster – the two modes corresponding, Paprika says, to the early and late cycles of REM sleep” (Rob Nelson, Village Voice). Colour, 35mm, in Japanese with English subtitles, 90 mins.