PAPRIKA: Interview with Satoshi Kon

Satoshi Kon's "Tokyo Godfathers" was marvelous. I highly recommend it for both the artwork and the story.

Satoshi Kon is one-of-a-kind. Looking forward to PAPRIKA because the man's simply never let me down. I do need to see PARANOIA AGENT one of these days, though.

And that French(?) poster pictured above for PAPRIKA is stunning. I want. If Sony doesn't use that for the US release they're fools. (Looks at COWBOY BEBOP: THE MOVIE and KUNG FU HUSTLE posters) Oh wait, they're fools.

You should check out Millenium Actress. That's my favorite Satoshi Kon film.

Saw this a few days ago at the Montreal Nouveau Cinema fest -- http://www.nouveaucinema.ca/2006/en/fiche_film.php?id=5104

As the presentator explained, we were very lucky to have had a copy, the distributor apparently refused alot of other festivals, fearing piracy, but allowed one screening in Mtl; the print arrived in the afternoon and had to be sent by back early the next morning.

The poster - it was the same, except "Par Satoshi Kon..." was replaced with "This is your brain on Anime"

The film is massively intricate and densely layered into multiple personas, realities/dreams and truths. The opening scenes will ring a bell to those who have seen Millenium Actress, and as the film progresses the film shares stylistic and thematic similarities to Kon's previous works while remaining utterly original, gorgeous and engaging.

Highly highly highly recommended, I have to watch this again.

Millennium Actress ia wonderful. My mother doesn't like animation - American, Japanese, or otherwise, she simply doesn't care for the art form. But Millenium Actress, she loves. I personally think it's because it's just damn fine storytelling.

"This is your brain on Anime?" This is your tagline authors on crack, more like... that's just plain corny. I'm sure Sony'll throw a Harry Knowles or Quentin Tarantino quote on the final version of the poster just for extra suck. That French poster has it exactly right, except I'd switch out PERFECT BLUE for TOKYO GODFATHERS.

"Anime" is a dirty word to me lately. It's a movie, obviously animated - other than the director's other works, that's all you need to know. You say "anime" to the average American moviegoer and they immediately think of either Pokemon or anal tentacle rape. That's why Disney avoids the "A" word like the plague when dealing in all things Ghibli, and they're 100% right to do so. The word is too laden with baggage in this country, and it is a marketing negative.

At least the loathsome term "Japanimation", one hyphen away from being an actual racial slur, has largely fallen by the wayside.

Animation (and by relation, anime) isn't a genre. Did you notice how, when you asked him about "other" filmmaking, his reply compares the relationship of theater to cinema as akin to that of animation to cinema? In other words, animation differs from live-action film just as theater does, even if all three can share some similar techniques. It's rather insulting to an animator, especially one of Kon's caliber, to call animation (or in this case, anime) a genre.

Just because the America populace has chosen in most part to shun animation, to call it the cute little brother of "grown up cinema," does not mean that it lacks the potential to be just as stylistically varied and even as socially perceptive as live-action film or any other major artform.

Sorry if I sound demeaning; I'm not really trying to hold it against you, as it's very common misconception amongst film buffs especially. I just get exasperrated by the gross misuse of the word genre in reference to animation. Otherwise, good interview. Kon is not a personal favorite animator of mine, but I liked Millenium Actress, and I recognize his obvious talent for technical craftsmenship and imagery.

Also, Rhythm-X, the word "anime" is fine. It's people's perception of the word that's terribly, terribly degraded. We should work on changing the perception rather than the word...

Jim - I chose the word 'genre' solely to differentiate between one category of filmmaking which is live action, and another which happens to be animated films, as well as to avoid repetition of the word 'anime'. I unknowingly stepped into a landmine! I should also like to point out that the text is a translation of an interview by Romain Le Vern at DVDrama.

Ah, I'm sorry for mistaking the interview as your own, Jon. However...

I understand why you used the word "genre", and I even recognize that most people would likely never use it if not for the textual aesthetics of combatting repetition. But I just don't think it's a very good reason, especially when there are better, if perhaps not ideal, alternatives, such as "medium" or "artform." I also believe there might be another reason you used it, though; perhaps you've heard other film types call anime a genre, and so, because of your inexperience with it, you just assumed it was the accepted term? If so, that's okay. It's exactly the thread of misinformation that I'm attempting to clear up. I would try to say this to all of those cinema guys if I could; you're just one I happened to come across.

I mean, think about it. The way you described it, with live action in one category, and animation in another, wouldn't live action films then have to be called a "genre" of film as well? Isn't a genre supposed to be a category of something with certain characteristics or a certain style (e.g. drama, romance, film noir)? As far as I know, the whole of animation (or even just anime) does not have a similar style or particular congruent elements.

I have to admit that this is a slightly personal matter to me. As an aspiring animator, I don't like to have my work pigeonholed into a genre perception before I even have the chance to create it, and from what I understand, most serious animators share this opinion.

But this doesn't need to be a "landmine." I don't mean to start a semantics war. I'm sure you're an intelligent man, so I think you can understand where I'm coming from. In fact, it's just a simple way in which I could hope that the world of animation might become even incrementally more accepted to a public who jibes at it with cheap, uninformed indifference because of the notion that it's only a knock-off of "superior" live-action film.

I see your point, Jim -- 'artform' or 'medium' would have been better choices.

Thanks for understanding. I really appreciate it.