There's an article in the N.Y. Times about Paprika, the Japanese animated feature that will open in N.Y. and L.A. on May 25. The article quotes director Satoshi Kon, whose other films include Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers.
“In Japan not just children but adults in their 20s and 30s will chose anime and manga as a means of escape from their real lives,” Mr. Kon said, referring to the thick, novelistic Japanese comic books. “But I think there is a danger too. If you go into that world, it is very vivid and colorful and seductive, but there are big traps within that, particularly if you let your real world deteriorate as a result.”You can see the trailer for the film here.
“On television and through the Internet people are being seduced by the sweetness of illusion and the sweetness of dreams,” Mr. Kon continued. “It is necessary to have that relief, because without it life is too difficult. But I think the amount of fantasy that people are being fed through the media has become disproportionate. I believe in a balance between real life and imagination. Anime should not be just another means of escape.”
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2 comments:
Had the chance to see a screening of Paprika, and it's definitely not intended for children and more intended for the audiences that he cites here.
Although whether or not it's any less of a strange movie compared to, say, Perfect Blue, is still in question to me.
The japanese certainly do make very strange films!
I will say that it does have some interesting film-making devices though.
I was really looking forward to Paprika but after seeing it I thought it lacked the depth in it's characters which the directors previous works had.
"The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" (another anime film which I saw around the same time) on the other hand exceeded my already sky high expectations because I thought the characters had a lot of depth and the story was very interesting.
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