Dead at 46 in 2010, anime-tor Satoshi Kon touched prime in his last completed feature, a fantastic, if occasionally overwrought tale of ‘dream machines’ able to record, display and share our sleeping fantasies. But when the apparatus is stolen from a research lab, it’s soon being dangerously misused with results causing dreams to invade reality with unpredictable effect. (Shades of Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION/’10, if slightly less difficult to follow.) On the case, a police detective with his own troubling dreams, the machine’s obese inventor & the female research coordinator whose alter-ego appears inside of dream world as the eponymous Paprika. And if plot turns and colorful characters sometimes threaten to overwhelm narrative, multiple viewings or better immersion in Japanese culture would likely help make sense of things. Even so, a sense of visual drama and confident juxtapositions in color, composition & pacing (swinging wildly from overstuffed street fiestas to event rewinds & sedate contemplation) show the hand of a formalist master at ease working within Pop sensibilities. Faults and all, with its appealing surface and pulsating, award-winning Susumu Hirasawa score, the film represents a substantial loss of a still evolving talent.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: A posthumous Satoshi Kon project, DREAMING MACHINE, has been announced. Presumably a sequel of some sort taken from unused sketches/ideas.
DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned above, INCEPTION/’10.
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