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Paprika (Sub) Status: COMPLETE
Movie
After having now seen Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent, Perfect Blue, and now Paprika, it's obvious to me that there's nothing this guy likes better than to totally **** with reality.
And I can't blame him. It's so much fun to fall head over heels down the rabbithole and see how far the absurdity goes. You don't know what's going to happen next, why it's happening, or how it happens, but it's a trip that exists to shatter your expectations and encourage you to reach out and glean meaning from the experience.
Assuming there is any.
The story of Alice in Wonderland (or Alice's Adventures Underground) is effectively the go-to-example of a nonsense story. The whole purpose of the story is to be nonsensical, being that there is no sense to it.
There's no mystery to it, there's virtually no coherent plot, it merely intends to present you circumstances where the typical rules do not apply.
In the case of Alice in Wonderland, the story is enjoyable almost solely because it presents an impossible challenge: understand it.
However when this is applied to a visual medium, the challenge becomes not just simply to understand it: but to perceive it.
Works like these are not only phenomenal exercises in breaking the traditional rules of art and animation, but also in directing, editing, and storytelling.
The question remains though, whether any story it may be telling is even a story worth telling...
Alice in Wonderland makes no argument for itself and no defense for it's nonsense. Nonsense is the whole reason it exists.
But Paprika tries to have a story and this is where it loses me.
Paprika opens with a spectacularly animated and engaging dream chase sequence which takes the central character through multiple settings via bizarre transitions. It's marvelously well done and one of many similar reality-warping sequences where that sense that something is off invades what we believe to be reality until the truth, sometimes literally, comes crashing down on top of us, much like in Inception.
It's an absorbing trip through the characters' respective psyches if nothing else, but that's just it. What else is there to it?
Well, Paprika TRIES to have a story, but it's... I really can't say it's any good.
We're introduced to the concept of some sort of head-device that allows people to enter a dream state and share their dreams with other people. Prototypes of the device are stolen and people slowly start to go mad as their dreams begin to take control of them as their minds are absorbed into the unconscious collective.
It's not a bad premise, but SO MANY QUESTIONS GO UNANSWERED.
For example:
How can the device affect people not wearing it?
If you don't have to be wearing one to receive a dream, then are there any limits to it's range?
Why are only some people affected and not others even when they're all working within close proximity to one another?
Why is the cop the only character who can remain lucid in his dreams even if they're all aware that it's a dream?
Why does only the lady scientist appear as the Paprika character in dreams?
How can Paprika operate independently of the lady scientist?
Is she an AI?
Why would the lady scientist appear to be an AI?
Why is all the blame for the abuse of the device being put on Tokito just because he invented it?
Even if he invented it to be tamperproof, what's stopping anybody else from developing a similar device that isn't tamperproof?
When did the lady scientist and Tokito ever develop a relationship?
What's the relationship between the young guy who's name I don't know and the old guy who's name I don't know?
What are the Chairman's motivations?
If he has a problem with abusable technology, why is he the Chairman of a company that develops abusable technology?
If he has a problem with abusing technology, why is he abusing technology?
If this was all a dream how did it DESTROY A CITY WITH IMAGINATION?
These are all questions regarding the narrative and the REAL WORLD'S RULES.
I could ask many many many more of the dream sequences themselves, but I honestly fear a number of them exist for no other reason than to provide some extremely bizarre forms of titillation.
When it gets to end of the movie and it's just a baby that inhales the bad guy so she turns into a giant naked woman and disappears, I can't really come away from that experience with anything other than...
There are certainly parallels to be drawn and insights to be had, but too pitifully little is made plain to us that even the most important plotpoints central to the main narrative don't hold up under scrutiny.
What WAS the whole deal with the cop's friend? Why was he chasing him? Was he really chasing him or himself? If he shot himself in his dream, what does that symbolize in real life? That he got away from movies? Why did he say he hated movies if he liked making them?
I DON'T KNOW, I DON'T EVEN KNOW THE MAIN GUY'S NAME!
The only character names I can remember from his movie immediately after seeing it are... Paprika, Tokito, Himuro, and... Chairman.
And there's like over twice as many major characters as that and two of those aren't even their real names. I COULDN'T KEEP UP.
Despite all that though, I still enjoyed this movie. It was an excellently animated ride even if it felt like total nonsense most of the time. I just would have preferred some sort of meaning beyond Alice in Wonderland.
If there is any meaning to the story that I missed, I would be very interested to hear about it, I know Paranoia Agent didn't quite click with me the first time I saw it, but for something as totally cluster****ed as Paprika, I'm disinclined to award it points just because I didn't get it.
I was here, I was ready, I was willing, I was waiting the receive the message, but the messenger just kinda ran up to me, did a crazy little dance and then just sort of ran away.
I'll have fond memories of the experience, but I didn't get anything out of it.
Final Verdict: [Friggen' Awesome][Pretty Good][Meh...][Just... Bad][Irredeemably Awful]
Movie
After having now seen Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent, Perfect Blue, and now Paprika, it's obvious to me that there's nothing this guy likes better than to totally **** with reality.
And I can't blame him. It's so much fun to fall head over heels down the rabbithole and see how far the absurdity goes. You don't know what's going to happen next, why it's happening, or how it happens, but it's a trip that exists to shatter your expectations and encourage you to reach out and glean meaning from the experience.
Assuming there is any.
The story of Alice in Wonderland (or Alice's Adventures Underground) is effectively the go-to-example of a nonsense story. The whole purpose of the story is to be nonsensical, being that there is no sense to it.
There's no mystery to it, there's virtually no coherent plot, it merely intends to present you circumstances where the typical rules do not apply.
In the case of Alice in Wonderland, the story is enjoyable almost solely because it presents an impossible challenge: understand it.
However when this is applied to a visual medium, the challenge becomes not just simply to understand it: but to perceive it.
Works like these are not only phenomenal exercises in breaking the traditional rules of art and animation, but also in directing, editing, and storytelling.
The question remains though, whether any story it may be telling is even a story worth telling...
Alice in Wonderland makes no argument for itself and no defense for it's nonsense. Nonsense is the whole reason it exists.
But Paprika tries to have a story and this is where it loses me.
Paprika opens with a spectacularly animated and engaging dream chase sequence which takes the central character through multiple settings via bizarre transitions. It's marvelously well done and one of many similar reality-warping sequences where that sense that something is off invades what we believe to be reality until the truth, sometimes literally, comes crashing down on top of us, much like in Inception.
It's an absorbing trip through the characters' respective psyches if nothing else, but that's just it. What else is there to it?
Well, Paprika TRIES to have a story, but it's... I really can't say it's any good.
We're introduced to the concept of some sort of head-device that allows people to enter a dream state and share their dreams with other people. Prototypes of the device are stolen and people slowly start to go mad as their dreams begin to take control of them as their minds are absorbed into the unconscious collective.
It's not a bad premise, but SO MANY QUESTIONS GO UNANSWERED.
For example:
How can the device affect people not wearing it?
If you don't have to be wearing one to receive a dream, then are there any limits to it's range?
Why are only some people affected and not others even when they're all working within close proximity to one another?
Why is the cop the only character who can remain lucid in his dreams even if they're all aware that it's a dream?
Why does only the lady scientist appear as the Paprika character in dreams?
How can Paprika operate independently of the lady scientist?
Is she an AI?
Why would the lady scientist appear to be an AI?
Why is all the blame for the abuse of the device being put on Tokito just because he invented it?
Even if he invented it to be tamperproof, what's stopping anybody else from developing a similar device that isn't tamperproof?
When did the lady scientist and Tokito ever develop a relationship?
What's the relationship between the young guy who's name I don't know and the old guy who's name I don't know?
What are the Chairman's motivations?
If he has a problem with abusable technology, why is he the Chairman of a company that develops abusable technology?
If he has a problem with abusing technology, why is he abusing technology?
If this was all a dream how did it DESTROY A CITY WITH IMAGINATION?
These are all questions regarding the narrative and the REAL WORLD'S RULES.
I could ask many many many more of the dream sequences themselves, but I honestly fear a number of them exist for no other reason than to provide some extremely bizarre forms of titillation.
When it gets to end of the movie and it's just a baby that inhales the bad guy so she turns into a giant naked woman and disappears, I can't really come away from that experience with anything other than...
WELL... THAT WAS A THING.
There are certainly parallels to be drawn and insights to be had, but too pitifully little is made plain to us that even the most important plotpoints central to the main narrative don't hold up under scrutiny.
What WAS the whole deal with the cop's friend? Why was he chasing him? Was he really chasing him or himself? If he shot himself in his dream, what does that symbolize in real life? That he got away from movies? Why did he say he hated movies if he liked making them?
I DON'T KNOW, I DON'T EVEN KNOW THE MAIN GUY'S NAME!
The only character names I can remember from his movie immediately after seeing it are... Paprika, Tokito, Himuro, and... Chairman.
And there's like over twice as many major characters as that and two of those aren't even their real names. I COULDN'T KEEP UP.
Despite all that though, I still enjoyed this movie. It was an excellently animated ride even if it felt like total nonsense most of the time. I just would have preferred some sort of meaning beyond Alice in Wonderland.
If there is any meaning to the story that I missed, I would be very interested to hear about it, I know Paranoia Agent didn't quite click with me the first time I saw it, but for something as totally cluster****ed as Paprika, I'm disinclined to award it points just because I didn't get it.
I was here, I was ready, I was willing, I was waiting the receive the message, but the messenger just kinda ran up to me, did a crazy little dance and then just sort of ran away.
I'll have fond memories of the experience, but I didn't get anything out of it.
Final Verdict: [Friggen' Awesome][Pretty Good][Meh...][Just... Bad][Irredeemably Awful]