In a distant, familiar future, our dreams can be breached, shared and "hacked" via a specialized piece of hardware. This seems to function as a potent means of psychotherapy, but when a prototype falls into unknown hands, the ramifications are potentially catastrophic. Sure enough, before we've even narrowed down a list of suspects, the line between fantasy and reality grows blurred, smudged beyond all recognition. Surreal, trippy phantoms invade the waking world, drawing fistfuls of unsuspecting day-sleepers happily down the rabbit hole in their hallucinogenic parade through the city. Even more experienced staff members, such as the titular dream agent Paprika, can't always discern tangible from artificial, which makes for some unpredictable twists and a playful relationship with the viewer's perceptions.

The last film of Satoshi Kon's tragically short career, it should go without saying that Paprika is gorgeously animated, with a ridiculous level of detail and a very pronounced, unusually fluid sense of motion. Anime can often lean too much on sudden movements and long, lingering static shots, but Kon's cast is constantly doing something. Their world feels lived-in and awake, even when its contents are a mere illusion. Ferociously creative, proudly odd and unrestrainedly beautiful, my biggest complaints are that the dialog is often smothered by rambling, incoherent victims and, as a result, the plot can be quite difficult to follow. A wonderful experiment, overflowing with ripe ideas and memorable scenes, but a good fifty percent of the subtitles can be ignored and the resolution leaves something to be desired. Would be a fantastic film to experience on psychoactive drugs.