again&again
twitter
INTRO
"She's a bad girl I know, but here I go again."
- Again & Again by 2PM
friends
» » » » » |
data
 |
< Paprika !
Saturday, 18 August 2007
|
Paprika (パプリカ, Papurika?) is a Japanese animated science fiction film, based on Yasutaka Tsutsui's 1993 novel Paprika, about a female research psychologist involved in a project to develop a device that will permit therapists to help patients by entering their dreams.
The film was directed by Satoshi Kon, animated by Madhouse Studios and produced and distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment. The music was composed by Susumu Hirasawa, who also composed the soundtrack for Kon's award-winning film, Millennium Actress, and equally lauded television series, Paranoia Agent.
Its world premiere took place at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2006. It also competed at the 19th Tokyo International Film Festival from October 21—29, 2006 as the opening screening for the 2006 TIFF Animation CG Festival. It was also shown at the 2007 National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC, as the closing film of the Anime Marathon at the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian, and at the 2007 Greater Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival. It was also a part of the 44th New York Film Festival, playing on October 7, 2006. Furthermore, it played at the Sarasota Film Festival on April 21, 2007, in Sarasota, Florida. Additionally it was shown at the 39th International Film Festival in Auckland, New Zealand on July 22, 2007 and will be shown as the festival travels around New Zealand. It saw theatrical releases on November 25, 2006 in Japan and May 25 2007 in the United States.
PLOT
In the very near future, a revolutionary new psychotherapy treatment called PT has been invented. A device called the "DC Mini" allows the user to view people's dreams, exploring their unconscious thoughts. The head of the team working on this treatment, Dr. Atsuko Chiba, begins using the machine illegally to help psychiatric patients outside of the research facility, using her alter-ego "Paprika", a persona she assumes in the dream world.
The movie opens with Paprika counseling Detective Konakawa Toshimi. He is victimized by a recurring dream sequence. In this dream, he wanders through the audience of a circus act. Undercover agents seem to tell him important information. Then the conductor of the circus points to him, counts to three, and Konakawa magically appears in the center of the ring in a tall narrow cage. After a shadowed man points him out the cage is rushed by the crowd, all bearing Konakawa's own face. Konakawa then finds himself living a few of his favorite films with Paprika at his side, culminating with him trying to catch a criminal escaping down a hallway after shooting a man; he runs after the man but the ground gives way. As he makes it to the door the screen washes out and a man's voice asks "Where's the rest of it?". It is at this point that the dream ends, and is a great source of personal anxiety for him.
This type of counseling session is not officially sanctioned, so Dr. Atsuko Chiba and her associates must be cautious that word does not leak out to the press regarding the nature of the DC Mini and the existence of Paprika. Unfortunately, before the government can pass a bill authorizing the use of this new technology, three of the prototypes are stolen, sending the research facility into uproar. This is particularly unnerving because in their uncompleted state, the DC Minis allow the wearer to enter any person's dream unchecked. In the wrong hands, the potential misuse of the device could be devastating, allowing the user to access any mind that has been under any kind of psychic therapy treatment and interfere with the dreamer's personality while they are asleep or awake. Tokita Kosaku, the inventor of the machine, assists Dr. Chiba and their chief, Dr. Shima, in searching for the thief.
The first clue comes when Dr. Shima is involuntarily psychically linked to a patient's dream through the outside use of a DC Mini. After sputtering gibberish, he runs through a window, nearly killing himself. Upon examining this dream, Tokita recognizes his assistant, Himuro, which confirms their suspicion that the theft was an inside job. In the meantime, Dr. Chiba uses Paprika to wake Dr. Shima and save him from the sickening dream, consisting of a colorful parade of inanimate objects, singing and dancing. As a result of this incident and two later employees falling under a similar influence, the chairman of the company working on the DC Mini, bans the use of the device completely.
Konakawa decides to visit a web address Paprika gave him. Here, two bartenders draw him into a quiet bar where he and Paprika begin to explore the magical dreamworld. Konakawa reveals that he was once an amateur film maker. He and a friend actually made a simple film in which Konakawa, the cop, chased his friend, the robber, amongst flashbacks showing how the two had once been friends. Konakawa and his mysterious friend never got around to actually finishing the film, which ends with the robber turning to Konakawa, smiling and dashing away as Konakawa raises his gun to fire. Konakawa left his friend, who was accepted to a film school but died before he could attend. As Konakawa reveals this, the crazed parade dream begins to seep into the room. Amongst the hubbub, Paprika spots Tokita who tried to infiltrate Himuro's dreams and was captured in the dream. Tokita pushes by her, revealing that the dream is in fact spreading more and more.
Upon waking, Chiba decides it's up to her to find the mastermind behind the whole affair. Entering through Himuro's dreams, she follows a chain of frightening clues to find that Himuro is only an empty shell. Tracing the "roots" that controlled him, she finds a great tree bearing the Chairman's face. After being chased by a barrage of attacking roots, Chiba wakes up. She and Shima make their way to the Chairman's house, only to find out that she is still in fact dreaming. The Chairman claims that he is in fact the "protector of the dreamworld," guarding this last haven against the inhumane horrors of reality and technology. Again, she is chased by the Chairman but also finds out that the researcher Osanai agreed to give the Chairman his body and become the Chairman's lackey, as long as he got to have equal powers over his own dreams. Chiba/Paprika is eventually captured by the pair after an exhausting chase.
Paprika wakes, pinned to a table by pins in a room surrounded by pinned butterflies, of which she is one. Osanai has brought her to his one safe place, away from the chairman because he loves her and doesn't want to see her lost/dead like Himuro and Tokita. He explains that he actually loves Chiba, without the cute-girl mask. After a somewhat sexual ordeal of peeling back Chiba's Paprika disguise, he picks her up. However, he is interrupted by the Chairman, whose head sprouts on his shoulder (the two share Osanai's body, housing the Chairmans spirit). As the two argue, the Chairman trying to kill Chiba and Osanai protecting her, Konakawa bursts through the wall from his cinema dream. Snatching the naked Chiba away from the two fighting men, he is chased through his recurring dream ending with Osanai running down the hall as before during the hallway homicide dream. But this time, Konakawa draws his gun (as in his amateur film) and shoots the escaping bad guy. This kills Osanai and the Chairman sees him sinking into a black hole in the ground, grabbing his hand, the Chairman too is pulled in. All seems well.
Chiba, thinking the dream is finally over, runs through the research facility with Shima only to see the giant doll about to knock down the footbridge they're on. The dreams then begin to seep into reality, including Paprika who now exists outside of Chiba. The demented dream grows and grows, like a cancer, infecting each new person and adding their own dreams to the parade. Dream and reality begin to blend until they are indistinguishable from one another. Soon the whole city (and the world) is in chaos except for Chiba, Paprika, Shima and Konakawa. Chiba sees dream Tokita (in the shape of a robot) and decides to help him, however he simply swallows her, but claims he's still missing "the spice...Paprika!" Paprika seems more interested in finding the source of the devastation. She and Shima dash through ads and posters until they find an all consuming black hole. Tokita sees them and races towards Paprika, wanting to eat her. At the last minute, Konakawa with the help of the two waiters from Paprika's site blind the robot Tokita.
A ghostly apparition of Chiba appears and we slowly realize that she has in fact been in love with Tokita this whole time and has simply been repressing these emotions. She comes to terms with her own repressed desires, reconciles herself with that part of her that is Paprika, and is thus reborn in the dream world. The Chairman then crawls out of the black hole in a gigantic black form. He darkens the sky and reveals his twisted dreams of omnipotence. Merging his dream-self with that of Osanai, he becomes a seemingly unstoppable force, and begins to merge the dream world with reality through the power of his own delusion.
Paprika realizes that everything has it's opposite "Light and dark, reality and dream...man and woman." As winds of change blast through the streets, Paprika returns to Tokita, where Chiba is. Disappearing into the robotic form, a ghostly apparition of a baby comes out of the robotic shell, like a womb. Sucking in the wind, the child grows until she sucks up the chairman himself, becoming a full grown beautiful combination of both Chiba and Paprika. In this new form, she is able to consume the Chairman's dream form and end the nightmare he created.
In the final scene, we see Chiba at Tokita's bedside. Konakawa and Shima leave the two as Chiba puts her hand in Tokita's. As Konakawa and Shima walk down the street, Shima asks if Konakawa ever figured out the meaning to all this. Konakawa, turning to his reflection and seeing the figure of his film friend, realizes that he in fact became the character from their original film, the cop. Konakawa visits the bar-website one last time, and the bartenders give him a message from Paprika: "Atsuko will change her surname to Tokita... and I suggest watching the movie Children's Dreams." It ends as Konakawa purchases a ticket for the movie.
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paprika_%282006_film%29
The film was directed by Satoshi Kon, animated by Madhouse Studios and produced and distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment. The music was composed by Susumu Hirasawa, who also composed the soundtrack for Kon's award-winning film, Millennium Actress, and equally lauded television series, Paranoia Agent.
Its world premiere took place at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival on September 2, 2006. It also competed at the 19th Tokyo International Film Festival from October 21—29, 2006 as the opening screening for the 2006 TIFF Animation CG Festival. It was also shown at the 2007 National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC, as the closing film of the Anime Marathon at the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian, and at the 2007 Greater Philadelphia Cherry Blossom Festival. It was also a part of the 44th New York Film Festival, playing on October 7, 2006. Furthermore, it played at the Sarasota Film Festival on April 21, 2007, in Sarasota, Florida. Additionally it was shown at the 39th International Film Festival in Auckland, New Zealand on July 22, 2007 and will be shown as the festival travels around New Zealand. It saw theatrical releases on November 25, 2006 in Japan and May 25 2007 in the United States.
PLOT
In the very near future, a revolutionary new psychotherapy treatment called PT has been invented. A device called the "DC Mini" allows the user to view people's dreams, exploring their unconscious thoughts. The head of the team working on this treatment, Dr. Atsuko Chiba, begins using the machine illegally to help psychiatric patients outside of the research facility, using her alter-ego "Paprika", a persona she assumes in the dream world.
The movie opens with Paprika counseling Detective Konakawa Toshimi. He is victimized by a recurring dream sequence. In this dream, he wanders through the audience of a circus act. Undercover agents seem to tell him important information. Then the conductor of the circus points to him, counts to three, and Konakawa magically appears in the center of the ring in a tall narrow cage. After a shadowed man points him out the cage is rushed by the crowd, all bearing Konakawa's own face. Konakawa then finds himself living a few of his favorite films with Paprika at his side, culminating with him trying to catch a criminal escaping down a hallway after shooting a man; he runs after the man but the ground gives way. As he makes it to the door the screen washes out and a man's voice asks "Where's the rest of it?". It is at this point that the dream ends, and is a great source of personal anxiety for him.
This type of counseling session is not officially sanctioned, so Dr. Atsuko Chiba and her associates must be cautious that word does not leak out to the press regarding the nature of the DC Mini and the existence of Paprika. Unfortunately, before the government can pass a bill authorizing the use of this new technology, three of the prototypes are stolen, sending the research facility into uproar. This is particularly unnerving because in their uncompleted state, the DC Minis allow the wearer to enter any person's dream unchecked. In the wrong hands, the potential misuse of the device could be devastating, allowing the user to access any mind that has been under any kind of psychic therapy treatment and interfere with the dreamer's personality while they are asleep or awake. Tokita Kosaku, the inventor of the machine, assists Dr. Chiba and their chief, Dr. Shima, in searching for the thief.
The first clue comes when Dr. Shima is involuntarily psychically linked to a patient's dream through the outside use of a DC Mini. After sputtering gibberish, he runs through a window, nearly killing himself. Upon examining this dream, Tokita recognizes his assistant, Himuro, which confirms their suspicion that the theft was an inside job. In the meantime, Dr. Chiba uses Paprika to wake Dr. Shima and save him from the sickening dream, consisting of a colorful parade of inanimate objects, singing and dancing. As a result of this incident and two later employees falling under a similar influence, the chairman of the company working on the DC Mini, bans the use of the device completely.
Konakawa decides to visit a web address Paprika gave him. Here, two bartenders draw him into a quiet bar where he and Paprika begin to explore the magical dreamworld. Konakawa reveals that he was once an amateur film maker. He and a friend actually made a simple film in which Konakawa, the cop, chased his friend, the robber, amongst flashbacks showing how the two had once been friends. Konakawa and his mysterious friend never got around to actually finishing the film, which ends with the robber turning to Konakawa, smiling and dashing away as Konakawa raises his gun to fire. Konakawa left his friend, who was accepted to a film school but died before he could attend. As Konakawa reveals this, the crazed parade dream begins to seep into the room. Amongst the hubbub, Paprika spots Tokita who tried to infiltrate Himuro's dreams and was captured in the dream. Tokita pushes by her, revealing that the dream is in fact spreading more and more.
Upon waking, Chiba decides it's up to her to find the mastermind behind the whole affair. Entering through Himuro's dreams, she follows a chain of frightening clues to find that Himuro is only an empty shell. Tracing the "roots" that controlled him, she finds a great tree bearing the Chairman's face. After being chased by a barrage of attacking roots, Chiba wakes up. She and Shima make their way to the Chairman's house, only to find out that she is still in fact dreaming. The Chairman claims that he is in fact the "protector of the dreamworld," guarding this last haven against the inhumane horrors of reality and technology. Again, she is chased by the Chairman but also finds out that the researcher Osanai agreed to give the Chairman his body and become the Chairman's lackey, as long as he got to have equal powers over his own dreams. Chiba/Paprika is eventually captured by the pair after an exhausting chase.
Paprika wakes, pinned to a table by pins in a room surrounded by pinned butterflies, of which she is one. Osanai has brought her to his one safe place, away from the chairman because he loves her and doesn't want to see her lost/dead like Himuro and Tokita. He explains that he actually loves Chiba, without the cute-girl mask. After a somewhat sexual ordeal of peeling back Chiba's Paprika disguise, he picks her up. However, he is interrupted by the Chairman, whose head sprouts on his shoulder (the two share Osanai's body, housing the Chairmans spirit). As the two argue, the Chairman trying to kill Chiba and Osanai protecting her, Konakawa bursts through the wall from his cinema dream. Snatching the naked Chiba away from the two fighting men, he is chased through his recurring dream ending with Osanai running down the hall as before during the hallway homicide dream. But this time, Konakawa draws his gun (as in his amateur film) and shoots the escaping bad guy. This kills Osanai and the Chairman sees him sinking into a black hole in the ground, grabbing his hand, the Chairman too is pulled in. All seems well.
Chiba, thinking the dream is finally over, runs through the research facility with Shima only to see the giant doll about to knock down the footbridge they're on. The dreams then begin to seep into reality, including Paprika who now exists outside of Chiba. The demented dream grows and grows, like a cancer, infecting each new person and adding their own dreams to the parade. Dream and reality begin to blend until they are indistinguishable from one another. Soon the whole city (and the world) is in chaos except for Chiba, Paprika, Shima and Konakawa. Chiba sees dream Tokita (in the shape of a robot) and decides to help him, however he simply swallows her, but claims he's still missing "the spice...Paprika!" Paprika seems more interested in finding the source of the devastation. She and Shima dash through ads and posters until they find an all consuming black hole. Tokita sees them and races towards Paprika, wanting to eat her. At the last minute, Konakawa with the help of the two waiters from Paprika's site blind the robot Tokita.
A ghostly apparition of Chiba appears and we slowly realize that she has in fact been in love with Tokita this whole time and has simply been repressing these emotions. She comes to terms with her own repressed desires, reconciles herself with that part of her that is Paprika, and is thus reborn in the dream world. The Chairman then crawls out of the black hole in a gigantic black form. He darkens the sky and reveals his twisted dreams of omnipotence. Merging his dream-self with that of Osanai, he becomes a seemingly unstoppable force, and begins to merge the dream world with reality through the power of his own delusion.
Paprika realizes that everything has it's opposite "Light and dark, reality and dream...man and woman." As winds of change blast through the streets, Paprika returns to Tokita, where Chiba is. Disappearing into the robotic form, a ghostly apparition of a baby comes out of the robotic shell, like a womb. Sucking in the wind, the child grows until she sucks up the chairman himself, becoming a full grown beautiful combination of both Chiba and Paprika. In this new form, she is able to consume the Chairman's dream form and end the nightmare he created.
In the final scene, we see Chiba at Tokita's bedside. Konakawa and Shima leave the two as Chiba puts her hand in Tokita's. As Konakawa and Shima walk down the street, Shima asks if Konakawa ever figured out the meaning to all this. Konakawa, turning to his reflection and seeing the figure of his film friend, realizes that he in fact became the character from their original film, the cop. Konakawa visits the bar-website one last time, and the bartenders give him a message from Paprika: "Atsuko will change her surname to Tokita... and I suggest watching the movie Children's Dreams." It ends as Konakawa purchases a ticket for the movie.
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paprika_%282006_film%29