Paprika (2006)

Director: Satoshi Kon

Stars: Megumi Hayashibara, Tôru Emori, Katsunosuke Hori
Runtime: 90 minutes

Synopsis: When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patients' dreams is stolen, all Hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist, Paprika, can stop it.

Animation: 9/10

Screenplay: 8/10
Editing: 7/10
Score/Soundtrack: 8/10
Entertainment Factor: 8/10

Verdict: Being on a small Nolan rewatch marathon and as I've been longing to check out the late Satoshi Kon's work, I found the timing to be perfect to watch the film known to have served as an inspiration for "Inception".

"Paprika" is Kon's final film before his untimely death in 2010, and is itself inspired by a novel of the same name by Yasutaka Tsutsui. And while the similarities with Nolan's blockbusters are more than obvious, I can say with confidence that they're pretty much limited to the concept of infiltrating dreams in addition to a few visual parallels.

The latter can be best described as a heist film, while this one acts more as a surrealist exploration of the subconscious. It's a very thought-provoking watch, one filled with gorgeous and creative visuals that support its surrealist identity. There is an overarching story that involves the theft of the device used to access other people's dreams, and I quite honestly found it to be the weakest element of the film. I was at all times much more invested in the psychoanalytical aspect of the narrative, which pushed me to do some research afterward to better understand its philosophical and psychological meaning.

The tagline of the films is "This is your brain in anime", and I cannot think of a better way to summarize what "Paprika" is. So if that sentence, dream interpretations, and surrealist imagery are of any interest to you, I highly recommend checking this movie out.

FINAL GRADE: 8/10