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The basic premise of Paprika is the ability to record and view and even virtually participate in others’ dreams via the DC Mini device. How does Kon create a “dream sensation” for the viewer? How effective is he in doing this? To what end do you think he is doing this?
The dream sensation particularly comes about with the heavy saturation of scenes, and the music that typically accompanies these scenes. This includes also what can be expected of dreams, warped and abstract realities, like the trumpeting frogs, or the oversized robot that Tokita manifests his consciousness into. He is extremely effective in doing so, but almost to the point that when he leaves ambiguity of whether what the viewer is seeing is a dream or not, that there is almost no way of determining. I think that this is his main reason for causing this confusion, that it will bring the viewer to question every scene that might appear to be reality, and such that the climax in which the dreams and reality converge is brought into question if it too is just a dream. Moreover, when Paprika appears, somehow having completely split from Chiba, IF it isn’t a dream, but it’s nearly impossible to figure out.
The essence of the “dream sensation” is a kind of narrative based on a distorted or sometimes nonexistent logic. The dreamer must lose his sense of logical flow as it is known in the waking world in order to be immersed in and profit from the dream experience. Detractors of Paparika may cry that the story is incoherent and breaks rules of logic, but these people have missed the point of the film and of dreams themselves. Those insightful enough to seek meaning in the dream world are not foolish enough to do so by holding their nocturnal narratives to the scrutiny that can be applied to traditional “real world” stories. Rather, they seek meaning in the dreamworld as it is presented, as a sequence of sensations and experiences that leave profound impressions. Paprika seeks to (and, for fans of the film, succeeds in) replicating this effect by forgoing the rules that bind conventional narrative and reality to traditional logic.
Kon creates a dream sensation for the viewer by having crazy sequences that are obviously dreams and then mixing that with the real world.In the beginning, it is obvious to tell which parts are dreams. As the movie progresses the dreams merge with reality until the viewer is unable to know what is happening in the real world and what isn’t. This is the same as how when in a dream, one is unable to tell what is real and what fake. While in a dream, no matter how crazy something is, it makes sense in the dream. This is what Kon creates. He creates scenes that on their own would make no sense, but in the context of all that is happening, it fits and is not questioned
Kon is able to create the “dream sensation” through several different techniques. First, dream sequences always are brightly colored, and yet those colors are often colored with a slight tinge of grey, making the scene feel slightly hazy and dreamy. Second, Kon likes to contrast the unnatural dream elements with the perfectly normal environment around them, like the circus parading through Tokyo, to emphasize the sense of these elements being out of place. Third, when in a dream sequence, characters within the dream sequence do seemingly unnatural things as if it were second nature, running into paintings or transforming into whales, implying that conventional logic does not apply to the dream world. Through these techniques, Kon masterfully builds not only the world of the dream, but also the tone of the dream – whenever I realized that I was watching a dream sequence, I felt myself leaning back, throwing away all preconceptions of what would happen next and preparing to enjoy watching Kon’s imagination come to life on screen.
Kon constructs the sense of dreams, and makes a dichotomy of reality and dreams through certain objects and symbols. For example, the audience will naturally assume that when the fantastic parade, the creepy and talking doll, and paprika appear, Kon is presenting the content of dreams to the audience. However, Kon at the mean time creates a certain extent of confusion: he intentionally incorporates elements of reality, or certain incidents that will logically happen in reality, to the world of dreams, so that the audience will eventually have difficulty to tell if the scene reflects reality and dreams.
Kon in Paprika shows the development of the fantastic dream: it is distinguishable from the reality at first. However, due to DC mini and people’s paranoia, the dreams finally invade the realm of reality, and destruct Tokyo again. The converge of dreams and reality reflects Kon’s perspective: dreams and reality are interdependent and indispensable for each other.Kon highlights dream sequences mainly by breaking the conventions of reality. This involved scenes such as the match-cut movie scenes in Konakawa’s dreams, the dream parade of various items, and other fantastic events. Although the bright color palette is set for the whole movie, it especially compliments the dream sequences. Kon wanted to portray dreams in a more positive tone, a fantasy of the mind, so the bright and vivid colors help create that sort of atmosphere. In contrast, the climax of Paprika was full of darker and duller colors as Tokyo was being sucked up into the “black hole” to convey a sort of nightmare in reality.
The story of Paprika is not told in a straightforward manner; instead, the scenes seem to jump from one to the next. The focus moves from one area to the next. This kind of scattered focus is an important part in creating the dream-like sensation.
The dreams contain elements that contain a combination of the logical and illogical. We see inanimate objects coming to life and characters like Tokita becomes robot-like. In addition Kon uses bright, vivid colors to set the scenes, making use of primary colors that evokes a feeling of fantasy and imagination.Kon creates a dream sensation by making the dream sequences more colorful and making the movements of the characters more fluid. Even with these things it’s still difficult to distinguish between the dream sequences and reality. Another good indicator of whether or not it was a dream was whether Paprika was present, but that also stopped working when Paprika was destroyed.
The “dream sensation” in Paprika can definitely be attributed to the animation and the cinematic elements. The world of the dreams is definitely a more eccentrically colored world than when we are in the real world. The dream world always has a wide variety of colors that can be seen during the parade sequence of the movie. Although the line between reality and dreams can be blurred when the scene is either not too dark or colorful. Usually when this happens though, something strange will happen such as the doll appearing out of nowhere indicating to us what we have been watching this whole time is in fact a dream.
I think it’s pretty obvious when Kon is trying to portray a “dream sensation” in the film…like many of the others have said, he includes many fantastical elements when the viewer is witnessing a dream..Jean also said that the scattered focus of the scenes helps to create this effect, to which I highly agree with. This is especially true in Konakawa’s dream, where one scene changes to the next with lightning speed. Eventually, throughout the film, as dreams and reality begin to collide, Kon makes it hard for the audience to discern what the setting for each scene is. Sometimes Chiba’s alter-ego, Paprika, appears in what appears to be “reality”, but it could be that we are really in a dream.
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