Surrealism in Satoshi Kon Films

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For the week of cyber and steampunk, I watched Paprika. I liked this movie so much that I watched other films by Satoshi Kon and realized that he uses a lot of surrealism, weird, and horror motifs in his films.

For Paprika alone, Kon creates altered realities through the device that is in the film. The device allows for people's dream to be seen by others, but a woman who works for the company is able to travel into other's dreams. By having their dreams infiltrated, people begin to go insane. We are able to get a glimpse into people's minds after going insane and there is a juxtaposition of the environment where this strange parade happens, and the characters, vehicles, and absurd things that parade through the desert.

While this film is a bit chaotic and confusing, the blending between the surreal dream-world and the real world is interesting and well done. Even through the multiple realities of sorts make the film a bit confusing, the way that dreams and reality begin to merge makes sense in the context of this story. There's a shift between the dream world and reality. As the dream parade begins to go throughout reality, the real world begins to unravel like a dream. After defeating the chairman, who dreams of omnipotence, the "nightmare" seems to end.

Yes, the movie is confusing; however, I'm sure after multiple views, it would be more understandable. I do think that the movie also has to do with experiencing it and being confused and enamored with the visuals and surrealism it presents.

The other films I watched by Satoshi Kon were Tokyo Godfathers and Perfect Blue. I think Perfect Blue fits in better with this course due to the horror and psychological elements it present. It also experiments with multiple realities and points of view with the character ultimately being stalked and someone posing as her; however, she herself becomes paranoid and questions her own reality. I think this would be a good film to teach in one of your topics (it kind of fits into J-Horror.)

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