Dreams: An Escape or a Trap?
Satoshi Kon was a famous Japanese director, animator, screenwriter, and manga artist. Passing away at the age of 46, Satoshi Kon left a mark in the animated film industry that will be recognized and referenced for decades. Paprika was such a groundbreaking project, it has earned nods from Christopher Nolan’s Inception, evident in the cinematography style. Paprika, being his last film before his death, explores the beauty of surrealism through a device called DC Mini that helps those on the outside visualize the dreams of the person using the device. The creation of the device was made for psychotherapy treatment, along with the enjoyment of exploring dreams with those around you. This creation isn’t so picture perfect though. The DC Mini hasn’t reached it’s full completion so there are downsides to it that leaves it very vulnerable to those who might take advantage of it.
Throughout the film, its visuals of what certain characters dream, adds to the perplexity of the film’s theme. When first watching this film, I was in a constant state of hesitation, thinking I knew exactly what was going on but the visuals would muddle my understanding and new turning points would occur as I was trying to grasp an idea. Kon does a good job of introducing new points in the film periodically because it represents how new ideas are introduced to us in our dreams. When some of us dream, we don’t always have complete control over what happens next, and that is very evident with the characters in this film. By introducing this style, it turns Paprika into a dream for ourselves, something we can’t fully understand and constantly loosening our grasp on what is reality or a dream.
An example of a scene in Paprika in which Inception nods to, is the mirror scene where Ariadne creates a location from somewhere in the real world. She pulls two mirrors parallel to each other and creates an outdoor tunnel. In Paprika, towards the end of the film when Chiba Astuko enters the Chairman’s dream as Paprika, she encounters a mirror in which she breaks when she touches it just like Ariadne did. Another scene that is known as such a thrilling and adventurous point in Inception is the hallway scene. This takes place in the second layer of the dive into dreams and Arthur is trying to consolidate everyone’s bodies into an area for the synced ‘kick’ effect. In this scene, it is as though gravity doesn’t apply and Arthur is struggling in a battle against Fischer’s defense projections. In Paprika, this similar scene of a hallway without gravity constantly appears. Detective Kogawa is having an internal battle with himself and the current case he is trying to solve. In his dreams, he is constantly brought back to a scene in which he is chasing after someone in a hallway while there is also a body in-between him and the person he is pursuing. No matter which film you had seen first, coming across this two scenes for example are so exciting. Both films had completely different plots but are brought together through dreams, surrealism, and cinematography.
Christopher Nolan’s Inception has a similar take on tackling dreams and surrealism in film. Surrealism is the display of creative potential of the unconscious mind. This is shown in Inception several ways but one of them is when Mal commits suicide. She had convinced herself that she had still been dreaming and decided to incriminate Cobb for her death to end it all. Because Mal and Cobb had previously been in Limbo for so long, they unconsciously convinced themselves of actually being in the real world until Cobb finally broke them out of Limbo. It was as though the dream was still running in Mal’s mind and she didn’t believe that she had woken up in the real world. In Paprika this is also very obviously shown, but one aspect I want to focus on is the parade constantly shown throughout the film. The parade contains several different confusing props to it such as the Statue of Liberty, samurai warriors, frogs playing flutes, etc. This conglomeration of props are a representation of the Chairman’s desire for total control but also the dream world crawling its way into the real world. The Chairman’s manipulation of the DC Mini and the dream world show how the unconscious mind has so much power. Dreams are seen as an escape for some of us and in a way it’s positive. It allows us to do and see things we may never be able to in reality and that is what makes dreams special. But sometimes, our desires can become too strong for us to handle and its energy can become toxic, invading our reality and the way we function in the world.
Dreams are a mystery to us and exploring them can become very complex. Films like Paprika and Inception can help guide us to somewhat of an understanding but at the same time, new doors filled with endless questions open up. The concept of dreams is so interesting because they’re so intriguing and sometimes I feel as though dreams are their own being with an understanding of their complexity and purposely confuse us to increase our curiosity.