Venice. Paprika.

"Satoshi Kon proves again with the teen- and adult-oriented feature Paprika just why he is one of the most interesting anime Japanese directors right now," writes Lee Marshall for Screen Daily. "[W]hat Kon adds to the genre is a post-modern sense of how the visual warps that animation allows can be complemented by a new sort of dissolving, multi-layered story that plays mind games with its audience." Not only is it superior to "the more conventional Tales of Earthsea - directed by Hayao Miyazaki's son Goro," but even taking A Scanner Darkly into consideration, Paprika, he adds, is "one of the more refreshingly original animation titles we are likely to see this year."

"As in other sci-fi pics featuring technology that can record thoughts, such as Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days or David Cronenberg's eXistenZ, the borders between reality and imagination keep getting blurred, creating a narrative Chinese box of dreams within dreams," writes Variety's Leslie Felperin. "Playful use is made of movie allusions and general cinematic imagery, building up to a reasonably nightmarish climax where, natch, Tokyo is nearly destroyed."

But David Jenkins grumbles at the Time Out Movie Blog: "Coherence and narrative are a definite no show, making this one of the more underwhelming prospects of the festival so far."

Earlier: Todd at Twitch.

Posted by dwhudson at September 6, 2006 1:01 PM