Paprika

In some ways, Paprika is a standard thriller with an unconventional bomb. Something has gotten into the wrong hands and if the protagonists don’t wrest it back to safety, then something catastrophic will damage the world. The thing the protagonists need to reclaim is the DC Mini (DreamCast Mini?), a dream navigator that has been stolen and has gone social or viral over the human network, infecting reality with dreamed chaos.

Master storytellers are often accused of finding a great story and then telling that story over and over again throughout their careers. It would be fair to say that director Satoshi Kon couldn’t shrug off that tag, even when adapting a story into one of his films as is the case with Paprika. As a fan, it sometimes doesn’t matter that it’s the same story again. We know this going in and each new work becomes something more than just a story in isolation from previous work. This can be good or bad, but for me and Paprika, this created some baggage that made it difficult to watch the film until I let it go.

I guess what I’m saying is that when I go into a Kon film, I look for certain things. He loves meditating about fantasy and the potential damage it can bring to personal identity. It is the story he retells. He loves to visually push the viewer through the end of one scene full speed into on-coming traffic. He loves to warn about obsession. He’s like a laughing monkey in a cage hurling fragrant handfuls of caution toward otaku faces. And like any old guy, he loves looking back, wondering how he got here.

Paprika takes some of these Kon fascinations a little further than his other films. In particular, it’s not just the characters having trouble telling the difference between fantasy and reality, but rather there is no separation between the two at points. There’s some sweet transition overlaps. But for all the advancement Paprika does to push the brackets and widgets Kon uses to tell his story, it’s my least favorite Kon film. Ironically, it’s also the Kon work I’ve seen the most.

I miss in Paprika what made Tokyo Godfathers and Millennium Actress the works of his that I most enjoy. In spite of all the cool shit thrown in for decor, Paprika is a basic thriller that trips up a few times and has some problems with momentum. It was difficult to get through because what I was expecting never arrived and what showed up in its place wasn’t good enough to take its place. Still, it’s good watch just for the weird stuff that he threw in there and to ponder some of the things the characters say in passing, but I enjoyed it so much more the second and third time after being able to set my disappointed expectations aside and just enjoy it as eye candy thriller material.

Release Notes

I got the region 1 DVD release. The dub was average in terms of how well they informed me and got me to the characters, which for a feature is somewhat disappointing. It did have a more theatrical feel to it than a dub for a 22-minute television program.

There are a number of interviews, behind the scenes type of things, and a commentary track. I haven’t seen all of them yet, but I always like those things.