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movie review - Paprika

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This is anime with the lid off. As with "Inception", but pre-dating that movie, this revolves around the idea of entering someone's dreams. Naturally, the mechanism for doing this, a machine, falls into the wrong hands. One of the scientists is using the device to cover his thefts. The initial investigation is sidelined when the machine is once again activated, this time by a second scientist with an agenda. Mas madness quickly follows as the populace is subjected to the intrusive projections of this unstable mind. As the scientists and police try to apprehend the illicit users of the machine, a struggle goes on between different users of multiple devices. Of course at this point it becomes increasingly difficult to even keep a grip on reality (or the ground).

Recommended. For Japanese anime lunacy, and for somehow keeping an emotionally-resonant story together while layer after layer of conflicting dreams somehow strive for control. I'm not sure I completely understood the final scene, but agreed with the characters standing around in the street with their jaws hanging open. I mean that last conflict. Man.