Saturday evening, Jackie, Fern and I went to the 6th Annual Sci-fi and Fantasy Festival in London. This was part of the anime all-nighter. We started off the night at 12 and finished at 9am in the morning. I’ve never done this sort of thing but I’ve got to say that it was a lot of fun, mainly because I can say that I actually made it through and I only slept through one movie, which to be honest was pure garbage (I’m actually referring to “LE CHEVALIER D’EON”). That isn’t to say that there wasn’t any rubbish movies (fucking hell Highlander was utter shit), but rather I didn’t feel the actual urge and need to sleep through them.

All of that aside, for me however the night absolutely peaked with ‘Paprika’. I’ll go so far as to say that the entire night was worth it mainly due to Paprika. This is the new movie from Satoshi Kon. The man who’s given us Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers gives his best movie to date. He’s now in that league of directors that are truly destined for greatness. He’s up there right now with the likes of Christopher Nolan and Brad Bird. The sort of person that you actively hunt his older stuff because you want to see if there was genunie sparks of genius back then and he’s been building since then.

Having watched both Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers, I’ve got to say that Paprika is without a doubt his crowning achievement, so far (he’s still at the start of his game as far as I’m concerned). The highest accolade I can give this movie is that it is to Japan what Amelie is to France. Yes it’s that bloody good.

This movie completely captured my imagination. Right from the intro to the movie with the titles I knew I was watching something special here. It gave me that same warm feeling you get when you watch the Amelie intro for the first time (you know where she’s doing all these things that you used to do when you were a kid as well). In this case it just had this incredible charm to Paprika’s fleeting around the place dodging people who are chatting her up and getting around town.

So what is Paprika all about then? It’s very very difficult to explain to be honest as I will fail miserably since it’s a movie which is pretty difficult to put within a genre. However a brief synopsis (without any spoilers), a revolutionary new psychotherapy treatment called PT has been invented. Through a device called the “DC Mini” it is able to act as a “dream detective” to view inside people’s dreams and explore their unconscious thoughts. The story follows (in part) Paprika, who is using the DC mini trying to help psychiatric patients.

The imagination in each frame is amazing. You’ll find yourself laughing out loud, smiling all the time. What’s funny is that the movie isn’t a sugar coated Disney fest. It’s just that the way in which the movie is told and the colours and characters and music all contribute to an amazingly uplifting experience. It’s a surreal journey where you actually understand what is going on at the end and are clamouring for more.

The other aspect of Paprika which I am incredibly impressed with was the score. Few people combine the movie with music very well, so much so that you are hungry to hunt down the music. People like Tarantino are masters at this, however the music in Paprika is so integral to the mood of the movie and really enhances every frame it’s unreal. The music is by one Susumu Hirasawa, and is an essential part of the success of the movie for me.

In the past few years I can point to a couple of movies that I have watched again and again and really enjoyed every time. Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Clerks 2, Amelie, Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service. I can definitely add Paprika to that list when it comes out of DVD.