パプリカ (2006)

パプリカ (Paprika) is an animated film by 今 敏 (Satoshi Kon) featuring 林原 めぐみ (Megumi Hayashibara), 大塚 明夫 (Akio Ōtsuka) and 古谷 徹 (Tōru Furuya). It takes place in the near future Japan and tells the story of a team of psychotherapists who struggle to recover a device that enables dream viewing called the DC Mini.

This film is what I expected to see when I went to see Inception in 2010. It’s confusing, crazy, impressive, and has a very interesting take on the opposition between technology being used to control one’s own destiny rather than technology being used to control others’.

Technically, it’s perfect. The soundtrack is trippy and strangely amusing, the animation is stunning, the actors are all very good… The plot is rather confusing and isn’t very interesting, but I didn’t expect something else from a film about lucid dreaming. It’s an experience rather than a story.