I don’t particularly care much for anime save a handful such as Hayo Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii, directors that really push the limits of how compelling animation can be. Satoshi Kon’s films fall into this category. In his movies you won’t find aliens invading high school locker rooms or gender ambiguous demi-gods trying to take over the universe 10,000 years in the future. Even though Kon’s latest film, Paprika, takes place predominantly in dreams, it’s still a world that’s intensely familiar. Kon debuted with the much acclaimed Perfect Blue back in 1997. The film had a major impact on directors including Darren Arronofsky who bought the remake rights so he could steal shots for Requiem for a Dream. His follow-ups Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers broadened Kon’s animation style which grew to incorporate a mix of hand drawn, computer generated, 2D and 3D animation. Paprika is Kon’s dream fugue, full of hallucinatory imagery and scintillating dreamscapes.

The protagonist, Dr. Atsuko Chiba, is a no-nonsense neuroscientist by day and a spunky, perky dream hunter by night. While diving into a detective’s dream to help him solve a murder case, the prototype device that allows her to enter people’s dreams is stolen. Lots of grand, beautiful chaos ensues as the lines between dreams and reality become broken to the point of catastrophe. The actualities of the plot, as is the case with most anime, becomes lost in a visual symphony of dream parades, giant dolls, talking frogs, demonic circuses all more colorful then anything Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz dreamed up. Tack on an incredible post-modern, synth soundtrack and the film begins to feel like ninety-minute amusement-park ride. I saw this with a friend who has an intense disdain for all forms of animation, but I could see as the film progressed he was captivated. When we left the screening room he said to me “Wow that just made me really happy.” Give it a shot, I think it’ll make you really happy too. Paprika opens this Friday.