No one is quite sure where she comes from. Chiba joins a thoroughly rational policeman, Detective Konakawa, to track down the mysterious malefactor who is holding the sanity of Japan in his hands they are joined in their quest by the title character, a pixielike redhead (drawn in a more traditional, wide-eyed anime style than the rest of the cast) who acts as a dream guide and trip doctor for those undergoing DC therapy. Atsuko Chiba, to enter the dreams of psychiatric patients, record them and even make therapeutic interventions.īut when four of the prototype devices are stolen, a wave of madness breaks out among the research crew and slowly spreads into the Japanese population. In this densely plotted story, set in the familiar anime world of the near future, a revolutionary device called the DC Mini allows an elite group of researchers, led by the stern female scientist Dr. In “Paprika” the dream world has become a bright, hysterical, hyperkinetic nightmare: a realm of violence and chaos closer to the Freudian subconscious than the Disney fantasy.
Kon owes less to the Brothers Grimm and Mother Goose than it does to Philip K. Otomo (“Steamboy,” 2004), Mamoru Oshii (“Ghost in the Shell,” 1995) and Mr.
“But they tend to get perceived as much more artistic.”Ī generation of anime directors - led by Katsuhiro Otomo and his revolutionary “Akira” of 1988 - has pulled the genre away from fairy tales and funny animals of the Disney films. Kon, who spoke through a translator on a recent visit to New York. “I make them with the intention of being for a general audience, a mainstream audience,” said Mr.
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Kon is at the forefront of a new movement in Japanese animation, or anime, that has little or nothing to do with “Speed Racer” and the other Japanese animated series that clog Saturday morning television. The creator of “Perfect Blue” (1998), “Millennium Actress” (2001) and “Tokyo Godfathers” (2003), Mr. This is the mad parade, the spiraling nightmare that returns again and again in “Paprika,” Satoshi Kon’s new animated film. That seems to be the popular culture contingent behind them, bouncing along with everyone else, are several religious and political figures: the Virgin Mary, Buddha, the Statue of Liberty, not to mention the red gates (“torii”) that normally guard Shinto shrines. Along come robots, anatomical models, masked demons, a swaggering samurai, the Venus de Milo and Godzilla. Right behind them come the frogs playing trumpets a group of tipsy raccoons, clutching bottles of sake and a band of friendly cats, raising their paws in greeting.īut the scene becomes wilder and stranger, and the mood shifts to something more sinister. THE parade always starts like this: A sofa, a refrigerator, a microwave oven and a vacuum cleaner dance and twist their way down a confetti-covered street.