It started with a simple question: What if you could walk through someone’s dreams? Not just watching—but truly being there, seeing the colors, hearing the whispers, feeling their fears.
Paprika is based in a not so distant future whereby a group of scientists have developed a machine known as the DC Mini. This is a mini machine through which individuals can enter and record dreams. Imagine it as a dream-sharing technology, crazy, huh?
However, in this case, there is a twist: the device is stolen. And once it does, the dreams of people begin to blend into reality. The world loses its stability. Human beings become insane. The dreams seep into real life and nothing is the way it appears.
The central figure is a calm and collected scientist, Dr. Atsuko Chiba. But in the dream world Paprika is a free spirited, fiery and mysterious woman who drifts in the dream world like a dancer. Chiba and Paprika (the same soul, different sides of) have to solve a mystery together, who took the device, and how to make the world sane again.
It is not a normal movie to watch Paprika. It is like a fall into a dream of another person but you do not know whose dream it is and how much time is left.
What first struck me was the visuals, bright, chaotic, swirling. There is a procession of toy dollies, marching bands, frog tooting trumpets, vending machines, porcelain statuettes--all dancing down the streets like a fire carnival. It’s absurd. It’s beautiful. And strangely, it seems to be logical at the time. That is what dreams are all about, right? They are reasonable until you get up.
Then there was music. Oh, the music! It was strange and humorous, such as a lullaby, in another world. It accompanied me in every scene as a shadow and the dream world was more real than the real life experience.
At one time during the viewing, I wondered: Is this still the dream? Or is this real life now?
That is what the film tinkers with our minds on how easy it is to confuse the two worlds. In Paprika, individuals forget what world they live in. And honestly? I sometimes feel the same in real life. Have we not all had days when we felt that we had been dreaming--or nightmare?
This film made me wake up to the fact that our minds are strong and we should not allow them to control us.
Dr. Chiba is rational, solemn. Paprika is crazy, emotional, fearless. but they are one and the same.
That struck me like a bolt. After all, do we all have our own Paprika? The other version of ourselves? The one who wishes to laugh more, cry more, dream more?
This film reminded me of the fact about who I am when I am myself-as opposed to who I am when others watch me.
In case you are a person who prefers honest answers and simple tales, Paprika will most likely annoy you.
However, when you adore to wonder, when you adore stories that rattle your brain like a snow globe and see the world in a different way then this anime is a present to you.
It is not only a movie. It is an experience. One which opens your eyes and your heart to the weird and wonderful world of your own imagination.
And perhaps, just perhaps, there will be a day when in a dream you will encounter your very own Paprika.
Thumbnail is designed by me on pixelLab and other images are screenshot from the movie