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| Fig 1: Poster. |
Satoshi Kon' Paprika (2006) is an adventure and crime Japanese animation. A group of scientists invented a device called a DC-Mini, which allows psychiatrists to enter their patient's dreams in a therapeutic setting. However, the device is stolen and the thief uses it to control people's mind, causing chaos. Dreams start to blend, become reality and the line between conscious and unconscious blurs. The scientists, Chiba, Tokita, and Shima accompanied by a police inspector set out to catch the thief and put things back in order.
The anime is exploring the consciouses and subconscious. The whole film revolves around the dream world and questions whether what we see is real or not. As the characters jump between reality and dream it is very confusing and sometimes impossible to tell whose dream we see, as the dreams start to blend and merge. Furthermore, the film works with the idea whether it is right to enter someone's subconscious and therefore challenging the idea of morality and privacy; it warns against the dangers of tampering with the natural order of things.
Paprika deals with some challenging themes, such as dreams and reality. It is known that capturing the nature of dreams is difficult and often can come across as confusing. While the anime does demonstrate confusion, it also portrays how dreams work perfectly, as scenes, events, actions and people keep randomly changing, appearing and disappearing; it sometimes does not make sense, but neither does some dreams, which is why it was able to communicate the topic well.
Satoshi Kon was a Japanese film director, animator, manga artist and screenwriter. He said, he found the original novel extraordinary and seen a good potential in, and he was interested in dreams and subconscious; so he decided to make an adaptation of the novel, and has created a well recognised and sucessful anime. He have said that the parade scene is a symbol for the subconscious, containing old objects that represent the forgotten.
When adapting the novel, Satoshi Kon said he was always inspired by live action, but did not want to copy any other animation, therefore makeing something unique and different.
Paprika deals with some challenging themes, such as dreams and reality. It is known that capturing the nature of dreams is difficult and often can come across as confusing. While the anime does demonstrate confusion, it also portrays how dreams work perfectly, as scenes, events, actions and people keep randomly changing, appearing and disappearing; it sometimes does not make sense, but neither does some dreams, which is why it was able to communicate the topic well.
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| Fig 2: DC-Mini. |
Satoshi Kon was a Japanese film director, animator, manga artist and screenwriter. He said, he found the original novel extraordinary and seen a good potential in, and he was interested in dreams and subconscious; so he decided to make an adaptation of the novel, and has created a well recognised and sucessful anime. He have said that the parade scene is a symbol for the subconscious, containing old objects that represent the forgotten.
When adapting the novel, Satoshi Kon said he was always inspired by live action, but did not want to copy any other animation, therefore makeing something unique and different.
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| Fig 3: Parade. |
The film is a mixture between 2D and 3D animation, which means some parts of it were hand drawn and some where made with using computers. Satoshi Kon have said he prefered to do hand drawn animation, which made it very difficult to compbine the two technioques, but they have managed to blend the two in a way it is hardly if not impossible to notice. Him and his crew of 50 people have worked hard to achieve the goal and worked on a faily small amount of budget of $4 million. He did the screenwriting, production design and storyboard.
The anime is based on a novel, called Paprika (1993) by Yasutaka Tsutsui, which was serialised in a Japanese women's magazine Marie Clarie. The film was released in theatres in 2006 and was animated by Madhouse alongside with Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan. Madhouse is a Japanese animation studio, that is recognised for many well known and liked animes, such as 'Death Note', 'One Punch Man' and 'Redline'.
The anime was mainly positively received by viewers and critics from all around the world. The anime is rated an average of 7.2/10 on Rotten Tomatoes website by critics and 4/5 by the audience, making it a quite high ranked and Newsweek Japan included Paprika in its list of the 100 best films of all time; but the film is well rated on other film critic websites and magazines. Although most critics found the film mesmerising, some have said it is boring or does not live up to some rivals out there, such as 'Spirited Away'.
The anime was mainly positively received by viewers and critics from all around the world. The anime is rated an average of 7.2/10 on Rotten Tomatoes website by critics and 4/5 by the audience, making it a quite high ranked and Newsweek Japan included Paprika in its list of the 100 best films of all time; but the film is well rated on other film critic websites and magazines. Although most critics found the film mesmerising, some have said it is boring or does not live up to some rivals out there, such as 'Spirited Away'.
After its release, Paprika was screened on multiple festivals around the globe, such as the 'Venice Film Festival', 'New York Film Festival', 'Tokyo International Film Festival', 'TIFF Animation CG Festival', and 'International Film Festival' in New Zeland. It was also nominated for some awards, such as 'Online Film Critics Society Awards' (for Best Animated Film) and '63rd Venice International Film Festival' (for Golden Lion (Best Film)); and has won 'Montréal Festival of New Cinema' (for Public's Choice Award), 'Fantasporto' (for Critics Choice Award (Prêmio da Crítica)), and 'Newport Beach Film Festival' (for Feature Film Award for Best Animation).
Figure 1: Poster. [Online] At: http://www.moviepostershop.com/paprika-movie-poster-2006 (Accessed on 25.01.2018)
Figure 2: DC-Mini. [Film Still] At: http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2017/04/framing-dreams-and-the-technological-uncanny-part-two.html (Accessed on 25.01.2018)
Figure 3: Parade. [Film Still] At: http://bankay.ru/library/1426-paprika (Accessed on 25.01.2018)
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