Paprika: The Spice of a Fulfilled Life

Warning: reading this post will spoil the movie so rotten that a neo-otyugh wouldn't touch it.
Credit: First, Paprika is the work of Kon, copywritten by Sony, the original author Tsuitsui, and everyone else in the credits. Second, most of this post came from discussions from causeiambetta, a modest man with a modest handle.

In the anime movie "Paprika", script-writer and director Satoshi Kon explores the themes of wholeness and mental health through dreams.The movie uses a fictional device called the DC mini, which allows the user to enter another person's dreams. The technology is supposed to be used for psychotherapy. However, the it is corrupted to invade the dreams of others. As REM dreams invade the waking world, the sleeping yearnings of three characters are awakened: the Chairman, the scientist Chiba, and the detective Konakawa. By using these three foci, a nuanced view of wholeness is explored.

The Chairman is the the force that corrupts the DC mini to draw the waking world into the dream world. He does this so that everyone else can live in his dream where he is physically whole and powerful, as opposed to his wheelchair bound body in the waking world. The fact that this wish fulfillment consumes Himuro and draws others onto the parade to oblivion is irrelevant to him. To the Chairman, his fulfillment is the world's fulfillment: le monde, c'est moi.

When the DC mini prototypes first goes missing, the Chairman wanted to shut down the project and all of the psychotherapy machines to preserve the sanctity of dreams. He talks about the emptiness of science in the face of dreams. Yet, he hypocritically uses the DC mini in his plot. This could be dismissed as a convenient lie, but the Chairman later tells Paprika that his garden is a sacred space where science cannot trespass.

The idea that the Chairman considers his dreams sacred is consistent with his overall arrogance. When Osanai is dying, the Chairman clings to his body, because Osanai's able and handsome body is needed to complement the Chairman's noble soul. The Chairman is stricken over what he will loose, not what Osanai looses or that Osanai is a human. During another scene, after Osanai pins Paprika, the Chairman invades Osanai's body and becomes outraged when Osanai refuses to kill Praprika/Chiba over "petty" love.

After his apotheosis, Paprika comments that his image of totality lacks a female component. It is implied that the Chairman's homosexuality is an extension of his narcissism. The implication is that his ideal is a male form that is similar to his own and because it is similar to his own.

The Chairman's wholeness ignores the needs of others and, therefore, becomes destructive when his wishes are fulfilled. Wholeness is necessary, but not sufficient for mental health.

Chiba's conflict is far more innocuous, but touches all of us: romance. She is outwardly cool and professional. Her beauty is intimidating. Yet, she feels constrained from revealing her feelings for Tokita.

Throughout the movie, clues are given to the depths of her emotions. The elevator scene gives off a sense of an onee-san type character with her bumbling surrogate brother. In the diner, after they investigate Himuro's apartment, she scolds Tokita for his gluttony. This could also be taken as the care of close friend, but the evidence mounts. However, her argument with him, while he is fiddling with another DC mini, has the heat and passion of a lover.

During the argument, Chiba touches on the idea of responsibility and selfishness; she wants him to improve. She also strikes the DC mini out of his hands. By contrast, an eminently professional boss, which is the usual Chiba, would order or reprimand him. The uncharacteristic heat of her blow and tone sounds more like a lover having a spat with her clueless man rather than a manager dressing down her subordinate.

It is only in the dream world that she can re-write the dialogue for the elevator scene. Then she can tell him that she loves his mind, despite his body, and that she can tolerate a spare tire, but he can't be a Michelin warehouse. And through Chiba, the film explores the idea of romance as a part of the fulfillment of life.

It is this union that lets Paprika defeat the Chairman in the end. Tokita and Atsuko/Paprika's union produced something bigger and better than themselves. While the unified girl resembled Chiba, it had Tokita's all-consuming creativity. The sums were greater than the parts and their dreams were bigger and stronger than the Chairman's insular vision of me, me, me.

While Chiba's growth focused on romantic connection, Konakawa's development examines fulfillment on the life path. His nightmare takes the form of movie scenes: Tarzan, a spy film, and then seems to take on real life at the murder scene. However, the murder scene turns out to be a movie scene from the movie that he made with his best friend, who Konakawa calls his other self. Even the bar scene is taken from "The Shining".

These movie scenes comes from his love of cinema that was suppressed following his best friend's death. They were to become directors together, but Konakawa gave up the dream. His best friend died from sickness before he could fulfill his dream, and the guilt lay heavy on Konakawa for abandoning filmmaking and leaving their film unfinished. By being plunged into the dream world and meeting Paprika, he acknowledges his past and comes to terms with the path he took.

In psychoanalysis, mental illness is believed to be born from the frustration of desires. The human mind shields itself from the conflict between desire and deprivation, but the coping mechanism often becomes the problem itself. The cure becomes worse than the disease that it was intended to cure. In Paprika, these subconscious desires were excavated by the DC Mini and brought to fruition.

Where many movies explore a concept through the actions and consequences on one character, the film "Hanabi" contrasted two lives on crossing trajectories, and "Paprika" used three movers-and-shakers as a sampling of the different aspects of fulfillment. And we are reminded that to find a whole and satisifying life, we all need at least a little spice in it.

[1] causeiambetta pointed this out to me. [2]
[2] other references pop up in the movie. The posters at the end were obvious. Also his pose after rescuing Chiba is probably from Golgo 13: the Professiosional. Finally, I believe that the pin scene was another. Megumi Hayashibara was the voice talent for Chiba and Ayanami Rei, who suffered a similar trespass from Ikari Gendou in "End of Evangelion".