Paprika!
Just came back from watching Kon Satoshi's Paprika as a part of the Philadephia Film Festival. Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience.
Oh fine, I loved it.
Despite how cliched this will sound ("Oh! Japanese animators are SO IMAGINATIVE!" does this remind anyone else of reviews for Howl's Moving Castle?), Kon uses a fantastic blend of magical scenery to achieve the "dream" effect: a technicolor circus, a psychedelic amusement park, a street filled with movie theaters, and an insane parade of dolls, animals, robots... He also pays a great deal of homage to animations of the past: Tinkerbell, Atomu, the Little Mermaid, Sun Goku, giant-monsters-stomping-on-cities-OMG! and dare I say it... tentacle porn? Let's not forget the little pat on the back near the end, what with the movie posters and all...
The plot itself is quite interesting too, though the questions it raises are hardly original (how much are humans entitled to mess around eachother's heads with technology? is there anything sacred? what is reality and what is the real self?). It is hard to go into details regarding plot without being too spoilery, so I shall refrain. Suffice it to say that the plot is quirky and philosophical enough to keep the movie interesting without making it absolutely incomprehensible... There is a great degree of similarities here with Kon's Paranoia Agent--where things are trippy, but not as out-right-strange as something like Lain.
If I have a bone to pick with this movie, it would be the way sexuality is handled and used. I'm still trying to figure out what disturbed me about this aspect of the film... Sexuality is certainly a minor (if not major) issue of the movie: While Paprika is flirty and sexually confident, her real-life alter ego, Chiba, is much more reserved and calm. There is also the issue of a character selling his body for material benefits, not to mention the odd, climactic scene. There are also a number of sexually suggestive and disturbing scenes involving the main character and, while I don't think they're completely gratuitus, I get the feeling that the message that the film is trying to get across with all these scenes isn't something I'd like. For one, I've been trying to figure out why Paprika is so special--sure, she hops around other people's dreams and is one cool lady, though her ultimate victory seems to derive solely out of her female-ness and ability to, um, either procreate or eat a lot of shit (have to rewatch to decide on that last bit). This scene reminds me of three odd things: Plato's Symposium, where procreation is perhaps interpred as women's only notable virtue, Faulkner's Light in August, with it's disturbing imagery of feminity as a cracked container with darkness oozing out of it, and the mating rituals of the preying mantis. Non of those things make me feel happy about the way the heroine saves the day.
Still, a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting experience, and a movie I'd most definitely recommend and watch again.
Oh fine, I loved it.
Despite how cliched this will sound ("Oh! Japanese animators are SO IMAGINATIVE!" does this remind anyone else of reviews for Howl's Moving Castle?), Kon uses a fantastic blend of magical scenery to achieve the "dream" effect: a technicolor circus, a psychedelic amusement park, a street filled with movie theaters, and an insane parade of dolls, animals, robots... He also pays a great deal of homage to animations of the past: Tinkerbell, Atomu, the Little Mermaid, Sun Goku, giant-monsters-stomping-on-cities-OMG! and dare I say it... tentacle porn? Let's not forget the little pat on the back near the end, what with the movie posters and all...
The plot itself is quite interesting too, though the questions it raises are hardly original (how much are humans entitled to mess around eachother's heads with technology? is there anything sacred? what is reality and what is the real self?). It is hard to go into details regarding plot without being too spoilery, so I shall refrain. Suffice it to say that the plot is quirky and philosophical enough to keep the movie interesting without making it absolutely incomprehensible... There is a great degree of similarities here with Kon's Paranoia Agent--where things are trippy, but not as out-right-strange as something like Lain.
If I have a bone to pick with this movie, it would be the way sexuality is handled and used. I'm still trying to figure out what disturbed me about this aspect of the film... Sexuality is certainly a minor (if not major) issue of the movie: While Paprika is flirty and sexually confident, her real-life alter ego, Chiba, is much more reserved and calm. There is also the issue of a character selling his body for material benefits, not to mention the odd, climactic scene. There are also a number of sexually suggestive and disturbing scenes involving the main character and, while I don't think they're completely gratuitus, I get the feeling that the message that the film is trying to get across with all these scenes isn't something I'd like. For one, I've been trying to figure out why Paprika is so special--sure, she hops around other people's dreams and is one cool lady, though her ultimate victory seems to derive solely out of her female-ness and ability to, um, either procreate or eat a lot of shit (have to rewatch to decide on that last bit). This scene reminds me of three odd things: Plato's Symposium, where procreation is perhaps interpred as women's only notable virtue, Faulkner's Light in August, with it's disturbing imagery of feminity as a cracked container with darkness oozing out of it, and the mating rituals of the preying mantis. Non of those things make me feel happy about the way the heroine saves the day.
Still, a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting experience, and a movie I'd most definitely recommend and watch again.