“The possession of fish is a privilege that can be revoked” – my residence lease

In other news, Paprika is seriously one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen. Well, not really: I’m pretty sure FILM 110 had its gems, and I can’t honestly remember a lot of The Saddest Music in the World or even A Hard Day’s Night. But, since Paprika is (is it?) about a machine that can link people’s dreams, it’s surreal, bizarre, and tough to figure out. I saw it with a friend at the Bytowne in Ottawa before I left for university, and I could feel the entire audience struggling to make sense of it the whole time – because, like a dream, it’s just coherent enough that you feel a few more seconds of thought will give you insight to the logic of the whole thing. But, like a dream, parts that made sense at the time only become more puzzling in the light of day.

Aren’t I selling this movie so well?

Okay, so, it’s animated in the anime-style. (Caution: the following is the extent of my knowledge of anime: 1) Sailor Moon used to be a popular show; 2) Pokemon and Dragonball Z were on YTV when I was a kid; 3) I know nothing else about anime.) And, like anime, just because it’s a cartoon doesn’t mean it’s for kids. If the whole movie is a dream, there are some pretty nightmarish sequences, and a couple of them happen to be about sex and/or violence.

The plot concerns a group of scientists who have (as mentioned above) invented a machine that allows two or more people to share the same dream. As the film opens, we see this technology being used by a handsome, action-hero-type policeman. He’s working with a young female therapist, Paprika, to explore his psyche and figure out why he keeps having an upsetting recurring dream. Paprika is fun and cute and vivacious Then – DUN DUN DUN! – we switch plots to the scientists, including the obligatory dour-female-scientist-with-her-hair-in-a-bun-and-a-stick-up-her-rear and a couple of oddballs. Someone has stolen the dream-machine! Egads! And the head guy in charge of funding wants to shut down the whole project as too dangerous. You don’t say!

Without giving too much away, there seems to be a plot underfoot involving all the characters (policeman included) to force the whole world (including, perhaps, the audience) into a giant, wacky, random dream. For what purpose? I’m still not really sure. Do they want to bring the dream to the real world, or to transport all the real people to the dream? Um… I don’t know. Is it all really pretty and weird and evocative as our heroes chase the villains through a labyrinth of dreams while trying at the same time to find themselves? Yes. Yes, it is.

You know how most adventure/mystery movies aim to build up layer upon layer of clues and intrigue until, after striving for an hour, you finally reach that “aha!” moment? Looking around the cinema, I came to the conclusion that Paprika is not so much about striving for the “aha!” as it is about valiantly delaying the “wtf?” But I at least understood that I wasn’t meant to understand, which somehow made everything all right. (And sounds kind of Zen while I’m at it.) There were a couple parts I didn’t-understand in a bad way (like, I’m not really sure how the characters can justify the statement “the opposite of man is woman”… welcome to twenty-first-century gender studies…). However, no matter what you “get”, the plot wraps itself up in a satisfying way. And the surviving characters’ lives go off in directions Hollywood would never take them, which was perversely gratifying.

The movie is also an interesting examination of dreams – what do they mean, how do we know when we are or aren’t dreaming, what do they tell us about ourselves. Which is pretty neat, if I do say so myself.

So, if your taste tends toward Salvador Dali’s floppy clocks, the randomness that is some of Edward Gorey’s less logical stories, or picture books like Chris Van Allsburg’s The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (read it, read it, read it!) then Paris is the capital of France. Strange, but true. AND, if you like all those things, you may want to check out Paprika.

See, I didn’t make a lame joke about “sprinkling a dash of Paprika” or something like that.

In this picture, I am probably making a lame joke*.

* Or a gingerbread house. YOU BE THE JUDGE!