Living in a modern society with rapid development of science and technology, it is difficult to find an appropriate place for oneself. Directed by Satoshi Kon in 2006, through the travel back and forth and the intertwining of fantasy and reality in the use of multidimensional images, the animated film Paprika surreally reveals the split of the human subconscious and reflects the conflict between desire human and the development of modernization in society. The film creates a mirror world that contains dreams, paintings, screen and visual network which can be considered as different mirrors of the subconscious. Satoshi Kon places the dream at the center, exploring the expression of subconscious desire and the lack of personal identity of individuals in the process of modernization. The alienated identity of individuals is established in the mirror world, which is the glittering but disgusting nightmare, which affects the entire psychological development of individuals. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayAlmost all the characters in the film, not only the main character Dr. Atsuko Chiba, but also minor characters such as police detective Toshimi Konakawa, Dr. Kosaku Tokita and Torataro Shima are invaded by dreams and have their own alter egos in their dreams. Dreams bring with them the strong disguised subconscious desire, which leads to the never-ending torment of self-exploration. However, the ending of the film indicates that the destination is to return to the real world to complete the exploration. In Paprika each individual tries to identify himself in a place where many other individuals exist. The ideal state of place should be the real world, but once it cannot be achieved, the subconscious desire would try to evoke an ideal ego in the mirror world and integrate the fragmented experiences into reality. Therefore, the unconscious ego would recognize the expression of desire through the mirror world, so as to complete the identity or misrecognition of the “self” to make up for the lack of self-identity in the real world. Where animated films differ from live action films is that each image and each frame has its own meaning given by the director. To make the main character Paprika more prominent, Satoshi Kon arranged several dream scenes, including the parade scene. The colorful and beautiful nightmare mixes with reality and the dream in which it was shattered becomes the vortex of many dreams. The people in the procession began to rave. In general, day and light are occupied by human senses and reason, and the subconscious mind can only be liberated in darkness and night. So, if people are trapped in psychological difficulties during the day and their subconscious desires are always repressed, even rational people may have a chance to collapse. This is also an important reason for the comprehensive study of mental health in the film. The DC Mini machine seems to introduce us to the field of pathology in the development of new technologies, but in reality it is also the means that leads us to perceive mirrors and dreams, trying to pursue with the patient a deeper meaning so that dreams can be shown and analyzed as a movie. Although the dream is not a new topic, it is indeed a grand and free picture, large enough to show the director's allusions such as the crisis of beliefs, otaku culture, eroticism, mammonism, virtual network and so on . As Timothy Perper mentions in “Psychoanalytic Cyberpunk Midsummer-Night's Dreamtime: Kon Satoshi's Paprika,” “Dreams are a playground of primal needs, emotions, fears, and desires” (Perper, 327). Faced with the impact of real life dilemma, subconscious desiresof people who need to be expressed and their personal identity, which in reality cannot be revealed, manage to unify in the mirror world. To make the mirror world more complete and persuasive, in addition to dreams, Satoshi Kon also chose the screen , the network and other elements to complete self-exploration. These mirrors reflect and shape the ideal image of oneself. In the process of seeking “self” by constantly affirming or denying the expression of unconscious desire, there is no way to escape the mirror. Being an important element for self-affirmation, the mirror must satisfy as many self-identification desires as possible. Therefore, dreaming, as a great way to discover the activities of the subconscious, becomes the focus of Satoshi Kon's choice, in which dreams cascade down, step by step, making the subconscious want to accumulate under the camouflage and create a world fantastic beyond everyday life. People can create such a surreal fantasy world in dreams that consists of subconscious desire and fantasy motivation. In the film, Paprika's dream experience is the interweaving of all dreams, including the dreams of Detective Toshimi Konakawa, Dr. Kosaku Tokita, Torataro Shima, as well as the dreams expressed through Kei Himuro and Dr. Morio Osanai. As for Konakawa's dream as an example to analyze: Konakawa's portrait is gradually portrayed in the accumulated dreams. He finds himself in a dilemma due to the reality of repression of consciousness and lack of personal identity. His dreams of self-awareness form from distortion in dreams to gradual perfection and finally return to reality to be completed. Due to the death of the victim and the inability to solve the murder case, Detective Konakawa contracts a phobic neurosis and falls into a psychological dilemma. From the psychoanalytic point of view, his dream is caused by the recently evoked events and memories of old times to design a future plan using the present situation in the form of the past. Giving up the dream of filmmaking at the age of seventeen became Konakawa's hidden and unforgettable memory. In dealing with Konakawa's dream sequence, Satoshi Kon uses the path of "nostalgic remediation", as Sandra Annett demonstrates in "The Nostalgic Remediation of Cinema in Hugo and Paprika" based on Fredric Jameson's book on nostalgic films, the dream sequence Konakawa's dream "includes an effective extra dimension: guilt" (Annett, 177). Filming police stories kicked off Konakawa's real career as a detective, but the recent murder case made him feel guilty. The involuntary coincidence between the scene of the film and the real crime finally brought him the serious blow, making him accept the double torture of betraying his dream of making a film and of incompetently managing the case. Therefore, this character is driven by the distorted illusion of dreams, leading to a series of self-recognitions, which are actually errors of self-identification. These rich latent meanings eventually condense into one image: the killer is close to them but difficult to reach. Seemingly unrelated things, including the detective film and the romance of Roma Holiday, occupied Konakawa's subconscious and clandestinely replaced his true desire. But somehow these visual images imply the true intentions of his inner thought, such as the betrayal of his friend which means his betrayal of the dream when he was young, and his sensitivity in facing the number seventeen mirrors his fear of facing the betrayal. of his dream at the age of seventeen. Furthermore, the condensation and displacement of dreams make the mirror image difficult to understand. WhenKonakawa killed himself in a dream he told himself that he did not want to commit suicide and his portrait was revealed to be Doctor Morio Osanai. By the time the film was completed, the man killed by Konakawa was indeed Osanai. Konakawa's soliloquy about not wanting to kill himself shows the strong motivation of the two people hidden in their consciousness due to the intertwining of dream and dream. The motivation refuses to recognize reality and therefore masks and distorts itself within the dream so that it is misrecognized. Paprika is lucid about the existence of another “self”, but Konakawa and Osanai are ignorant as they are not yet aware of the state of their “other self”. But after the dream is gradually perfected, the mirror helps build the self-image, making this series of messy scenes finally come true in the future. Before reality is invaded by the dream, Konakawa saved Doctor Chiba in his dream world and eased his memory after solving the case. Under normal circumstances, people can distinguish between the fantasy world and the real world. Once the fantasy world and the real world mix together, humanity's mental world will begin to be disordered and will further affect the real world. Paprika therapists are trying to find a way to be in harmony with reality and put illusions in order. Paprika's treatment of Konakawa through her dream world foretold the possibility of a dream being intruded. Doctor Kosaku Tokita uses DC Mini and comatose Kei Himuro to communicate in dreams. This communication mixed with Konakawa's dream, intertwining many dreams and eventually turning them into reality. The dream invasion of severe delusions is the climax of the film, especially the scene of the parade of the discarded where people wander to the sound of drums and flutes, stimulating the subconscious of people in reality to break out of confinement and achieve maximum freedom. . When dreams and reality mix together, the unfulfilled desire in the subconscious seems to be able to emerge as an entity. Therefore, Paprika and Chiba could even appear at the same time, fully realizing the possibility of traveling between dream and reality in the awakened state, and creating a gap between the subconscious and consciousness. Mirrors reflect not only the shadow in the optical sense but also the psychological self-image created by the shadow. In other words, the most important function of the mirror is to imply a subconscious image of oneself that is different from reality. For example, Paprika pretends to be cute when talking to a teenager at the burger shop, but the truth was her disdainful expression towards him reflected in the mirrors behind her. Paprika is the shadow and ideal image of Chiba, appearing in the playground mirror and on the glass wall. The mirror seems to be the mirror of reality but in reality it has changed due to the invasions of dreams. Chiba and Paprika have a clear understanding of the existence of "another self", which creates the contradiction between the indifferent Chiba and the passionate Paprika. It can be seen that the mirrored identity in the mirror is not a simple copy of oneself but the ideal result of the individual's imagination, and in turn acts on the individual, giving him or her power. In fact, Chiba, as the main character, actually wants to prevent Paprika's character from appearing outside of the dream world treatment, even when dreams mix with reality. Chiba says that Paprika is her incarnation, so she shouldn't do anything without permission, but Paprika asks her "Have you ever thought that maybe you're a part of me?" (Teodorescu, 71)Only in an attempt to save Tokita and against the president, Chiba began to confront Paprika, and so they gradually turned towards each other.