Paprika Dream Sequence

[William Dupere]

Eversince the release of Inception two years ago I have been constantly hearing it compared to Paprika. Paprika, like Inception, is about dreams and altering and changing them. Both pose that existential question about what is actually real and what is just a dream. In addition to that there are several scenes with similar composure and cinematography so many people have been saying Inception ripped off Paprika which was released in 2006. I decided I better see Paprika for myself and decide exactly how big of an influence it was on Inception.

My thoughts: If Paprika is anything, it is visually stunning. All the dream sequences (85% of the movie) are absolutely beautifully crafted. They are all vivid and colorful and crazy and intense and the fact that it is animated really works well for the movie here because the things Kon tried to accomplish would have turned out less strong if it had been live action instead. The fact that it was animated really allowed for the movie to go in directions that would have otherwise been unable to go and because of this it creates the ultimate dream experience that might even top Inception. In addition to being visually amazing the scenes are all very well composed and well constructed cinematography wise.

Coming back to Inception, both films deal with manipulating dreams, both pose several thought provoking and existential questions and both do some cool things visually but other than that they are both very different. If you are looking for a cool movie dealing with dreams definitely just stick to Inception.

So what did you guys think about Paprika? Did you guys completely get what the whole thing was about or did it leave you confused too? How do you think it compares to Inception? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

i think it tried way too hard to be smart with a purpose behind it all and movies like that are a hit or miss or me it was a miss i only have a few hits and ones shutter island and jack nickelsons movie(they dont try to had has a stead paste) , anyway good movie but its no classic great vissual too.

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This next cut is a nice transition from the business card to the highway street, where Paprika drives on by on her scooter. Though she is center there is a lot of movement going on here so the framing doesn't seem stagnant.

This first fluid transition (where Paprika goes from one place/medium/whatever to another) is probably the most unexpected one, since at this point most first time viewers aren't aware of Paprika's dream nature. Again there is a prevalent orange color with the rocket ship, as well as a playful wink at hyper-cartooned anime aesthetics.

... and as she flies through the night sky she fluidly transitions again, this time into two advertising billboards (I'm not sure if this is product placement on Kon's part, as I'm not entirely familiar with Japanese products/beer...)

(Notice, too, how Paprika is wearing a white dress quite similar to that of the woman's attire in the sleeping employees photo, just left of the monitor. A nice little detail I only caught while taking screenshots of the opening sequence!)

I love how Kon depicts Paprika as a bouncing entity, a characteristic that not only emphasizes her playfulness but more importantly the dream nature of her existence, one that so cheerfully bounces around within the colder barriers of reality. Notice, too, how her red-orange shirt contrasts with her blue surroundings, again emphasizing the warmth of her presence.

This is sort of a fluid transition from the office building, where prior to seeing her bounce on the street we saw her bounce her way through the hallways. This is another playful and humorous moment in the opening scene, where in her frustration she simply lifts up her hand..

The effect here, of course, is one of really establishing a sort of surrealism regarding Paprika's presence in the real world, a presence that is almost God-like in some respects. She simply bounces around carelessly, free of worry or fear of breaking physical or anything that otherwise bars everyone else chained to the physical world. The aesthetic effect is also creative, echoing back to the days of pausing video cassettes (DVD kids be damned!)

Here is the second rough-cut transition in the opening sequence, where we suddenly see Paprika biting into a hamburger. We also see her reflection in the background mirrors, which are a rather important part of this brief (and comedic) scene:

One of the nicest things about this opening sequence is that besides being astoundingly creative, it really utilizes the stretches the potential of animation to its limit: Paprika is a dream avatar, and by such she can really do anything we otherwise wouldn't even think of in the real world. It also gives us a nice transitional introduction to Atsuko, Paprika's physical counterpart, and gives us a lot of hints regarding how both characters are similar and drastically different one another.

In Paprika, Kon decides to use surrealism as a fundamental bulwark of the story. Rather than portraying fantastical characters that interact in very real ways, he uses realistic characters that interact through a dream world, wherein the nature and outcomes of these interactions are governed by a profoundly altered set of rules. As such, the sequence of events does not follow the pattern we might expect. When Osanai is shot in the dream world, will he die in real life as well? If Paprika can change her form at will, is it possible for her to be captured by the chairman? We have no prior experience with which to anticipate these results, and as such we are entirely dependent on Kon to define and convey the rules of this alternate reality.

This review is backwards. Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel was published in Japan in 1993. Thirteen years later, it was filmed by Satoshi Kon. This year, it has finally been translated into English by Andrew Driver. (This is the third Tsutsui work to appear from Alma Books in recent years; Driver also translated his short story collection, Salmonella Men on Planet Porno, for them.) So I am not just reviewing a novel that is well into its second decade of life as if it is new; having already seen the adaptation, my original text is not the original text.

The film opens in a dream, although we do not yet know this. Paprika, a "dream detective," is inside the head of Detective Toshimi Konakawa, trying to get to the root of his anxiety neurosis. What appears to be a stakeout in a big top circus melts into Tarzan and Jane and then flashes through a succession of other filmic scenes before climaxing with Konakawa arriving too late to prevent a murder and waking screaming. As the light fades, we hear a voice: "But what about the rest of it?" As a false opening it is as clever as that in Serenity (2005) and as reflective of the concerns of the following film as that in Strange Days (1995). It is followed by an equally inventive credit sequence in which Paprika leaves Konakawa's apartment on a moped before leaping into billboard signs and computer monitors, flying through the sky and pausing time, until finally she ages two decades as she arrives by car at her apartment. Is this still a dream?

The book opens less auspiciously. Without the need for a visual hook Tsutsui starts his novel more prosaically, in the staffroom of the Institute for Psychiatric Research with two scientists, Doctor Atsuko Chiba and Doctor Kohsaku Tokita, discussing recent problems with their work over lunch. Everything is slower, more clinical. This is not necessarily a deficiency, but the contrast between the two mediums is wide and telling. However, even within a few pages a true deficiency quickly presents itself: the translation. On the second page, Tokita complains to Chiba about his lunch:

Leaving aside the alarming punctuation, the translation is also oddly quaint. Early on Chiba is described as possessing a "beauteous visage" (p. 15) and "laughing with abandon" (p. 16). Either this is heavily encoded with irony or Driver is making strangely old-fashioned choices; I'm surprised it isn't "laughing with gay abandon." Immediately after laughing she lies "somewhat calmly" (p. 16) which is both a meaningless description and a further indication of the stilted and dated language used. In combination with the excess of slangy punctuation, this creates a weirdly yo-yoing tonal dissonance.

In showing Chiba gluing on the freckles, Tsutsui makes quite explicit the answer to a question which the film leaves as a puzzle for the viewer: what exactly is the relationship between Paprika and Chiba? In the film, Paprika appears to be an independent entity or psychic aspect of Chiba (the two appear on screen at the same time). This odd, almost magical realist, flourish allows for multiple readings and lends mystery to the film. It is a mystery that is entirely absent from Tsutsui's novel, which never shirks from spelling out in bald detail exactly what is going on. What it does shrink from is getting to the point.

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