Paprika

The boundaries between the material world and the psychic world blur in Satoshi Kon's nightmare thriller about, in the words of the film itself, mental terrorism. The echoes of Philip K. Dick can be felt in the premise, where human dreams are accessed and entered by an experimental device, and then hijacked when the devices are stolen and unwitting victims are bound into a single dream: a network of brains controlled by a single user. Crime thriller and psycho-drama meet in the playground of an aggressive, sprawling imagination and the imagery of this animated cyber-mystery is wild and imaginative, a cacophony of playful fantasies turned malevolent by sheer excess.. Director Satoshi Kon is joined by composer Susumu Hirasawa and an associate producer for a commentary track (in Japanese with English subtitles). The substantial featurettes, all Japanese-produced with English subtitles, include the 30-minute "Tsutsui and Kon's Paprika," with Kon and novelist Yasutaka Tsutsui, and the interview roundtable "A Conversation about the Dream." The shorter "The Dream CG World" and "The Art of Fantasy," delve into the production side with great detail and a wealth of illustrative footage. Also available in Blu-ray format.