I have a confession to make that may disturb many of you. I've tried to combat this aversion but have failed, so now I have to live with it. Let me don my Kevlar™ vest. Take a deep breath and…
I generally don't like anime. I find it mostly boring and repetitive. If you've seen one giant robot…
You must have heard this one knock knock joke regarding a banana before. You must have. Oh, well…
Knock knock
Who's there?
Banana
Banana who?
Knock knock
Who's there?
Banana
Banana who??
Knock knock
Who's there?
Banana
Banana who???
Knock knock
Who's there?
Banana
Banana who?!?
…this charming exercise goes on ad nauseum until the racconteur decides to finish with…
Knock knock
Who's there?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange ya glad I didn't say Banana?!
…and that, mes ami, is how I perceive most anime.
Why did I call you all here today? To talk about Paprika (2006) by Satoshi Kon, produced by Madhouse animation studio. It's a wild, wobbly, surreal ride into the world of dreams. I'm not going to say it's anime cliché-free: just as American or Indian cinema have their own formulaic bromides—stylistic or cultural—Nipponic cinema, especially anime, also has its own. There's no escaping your roots.
The plot is a science-fiction police procedural: Tokita—a cartoonish, morbidly obese, bumbling engineering genius—invents a headset device dubbed the DC Mini for an unnamed firm headed by The Chairman, who—get this—is literally confined to a wheelchair. So far, so anime. The DC Mini headset allows dream co-habitation between two or more wearers (theoretically, doctor and patient); the psychiatrist (headset wearer no. 1) may enter and influence a (headset wearer no. 2) patient's REM dream state to better study the patient's psyche. The DC Mini is still in prototype stage, all its security precautions haven't yet been worked out, and of course multiple headsets have been stolen. Someone is trying to control everybody's dreams. It's up to the other protagonists, mainly Detective Konakawa, Dr. Chiba and her dream alter ego, Paprika, to solve the mystery.
While the idea is high-concept science-fiction, the story itself isn't much deeper than your typical manga[^1]—the film is based on 1993 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui—nor is the style anything you haven't seen before in anime. For the given subject matter, the art direction is quite linear and not at all abstract nor dreamlike. But it's Kon's presentation that gives it its depth. The dream sequences that unexpectedly weave in and out of the film's reality are intriguing enough; the opening titles are a wonderful example as is the hilarious shot of a line of salarymen, in tribute to Esther Williams, that take a nosedive off of an office building! But the main event is "The Festival", a fever-dream mad parade that extends to the horizon of marching refrigerators, medical simulation mannequins, waving neko cats, golden Buddhas, dolls dolls and more dolls and just about every other absurdity in a never-ending parade. Everything ebbs and flows like made of soft putty.
It is impossible not to make the connection between this film and Nolan's later Inception (2010). Paprika had to be an inspiration to Nolan (and apparently your King presumes correctly).
For such a surreal premise, it's paradoxically grounded and straightforward; it's closer in spirit to Vanilla Sky than Mulholland Drive. The film's broadstroke characters, its resolution and the ending were all a bit…anime…for my tastes (there's no escaping kaiju or mecha in Japanimation, I suppose). But forgiving all that, Paprika is still entertaining and definitely worth seeing at very least for its spectacular eye candy. So, for now you can keep your Akiras, your Evangelions and your Cowboy Bebops. But I am all about Paprika!
[^1]: Relax, I know saying your typical manga means nothing as there are hundreds of different genres. Nevertheless, admit it, you're not normally going to find Sartre-, Hemingway- or Dostoevsky-level literature in your average comic book/manga/fumetto/whatever. No matter how much incest or revenge you want to infuse, it still ain't Shakespeare.
