The movie feels like a complete dream, with surreal visuals and, at times, a difficult to follow story. This is, at the same time, the biggest compliment and criticism I can make about it. During some scenes, I had to stop and think: “Wait. Am I dreaming?”. This just proves the immersiveness of the movie and how perfectly it portrays its subject matter.
Despite being produced in 2006, Paprika‘s visuals managed to leave me in awe. It has a very particular style that fits the dream theme, complete with strange examples of surrealism and the nonsensical nature that dreams can take. If I didn’t know that it is almost a decade old, I would have thought it was released last year, as everything has a very modern style with amazing detail.
But the story doesn’t shine as brightly. It can be a bit hard to follow if you aren’t devoting your full attention to it. The desire to make it like a dream makes the story illogical. Actually, this can be seen very clearly during the conclusion, in which the villain is defeated in a very strange way that is an ass-pull and doesn’t really have any build up. Still, it was a highly entertaining ride in this regard also.
The soundtrack is composed of mostly techno songs, but it fits perfectly the imagery seen and also has its own charm. The voice acting for Paprika/Chiba is amazing as it done by the same person, but sounds completely different. It is really like hearing two completely different people talk.
Sure, the story is a bit confusing and its conclusion, specially, isn’t as great as the rest of the film, but manages to complete exactly what it set out to do: create a dream. More than that, it still manages to be highly enjoyable to watch, in a multitude of ways.
I would definetly recommend it to anyone that is intrigued by the idea of a story about dreams and also to fans of fantasy and science-fiction alike.
