Name: Inception
Genre: Action

best Christopher Nolan movies 14 years later.

From the trailers to whether Cobb’s top stopped spinning, Inception was a pop culture phenomenon in 2010. It was the first time Nolan directed an action-packed blockbuster outside of the Batman films and proved that the filmmaker’s original movies could be as successful as his Dark Knight trilogy entries. However, as much as love Inception, my favorite film about the subconscious and what happens when we’re dreaming came out four years earlier and explored those themes in a very different way from what Nolan would do.

Paprika Combined Sci-Fi And Surrealism In A Way That Inception Couldn’t

Paprika’s Representation Of Dreams Is Radically Different From Inception's

When I think of dreams and the power of the subconscious, I think of the unpredictable and things that should not make sense. This is something that the late director Satoshi Kon perfectly captured with Paprika. While Paprika was based on a novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, the visuals and pacing of the film added a lot to the experience. Paprika is a sci-fi movie first and foremost – it features a machine that allows people to have shared dreams – yet it is also a surreal visual experience that successfully emulates what dreaming feels like.

Movie	Release Date	Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score	Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score
Paprika	September 2, 2006	86%	87%
Inception	July 16, 2010	87%	91%

Christopher Nolan’s Inception, on the other hand, is a much more well-behaved movie defined by strict rules and rhythm. There is a charm to how Inception finds order in the chaos of the subconscious and makes an action-packed heist out of such an unusual premise, but the movie never quite captures what dreams truly feel like. Naturally, this is a stylistic choice that comes down to the movie the filmmaker wants to make, but I cannot help but feel like Paprika does something more compelling with its premise than Inception.

Inception Was Great (But Paprika Did Something More Interesting)

Paprika Made The Most Of Its Premise

Cobb in Inception in front of a still from Paprika — Custom image by Debanjana Chowdhury

It is difficult not to compare Inception to Paprika given the similarities in their premises. From the idea of shared dreams to a machine through which it happens, both Paprika and Inception play with the idea that the subconscious is incredibly powerful and can provide answers that one wouldn’t be able to find in the “real world.” Compared to Paprika, Inception is a more straightforward movie, even though all the dream levels and hidden twists make Nolan’s film very rewatchable. Still, Inception is told from the perspective of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Cobb, a man with a clear goal from the start.

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In Paprika, it takes a while to understand what the film is really trying to say, and how its characters connect. The idea of a psychiatrist, Dr. Atsuko Chiba, having an alter-ego she can use to enter her patients’ dreams is incredibly fascinating and sets the tone for the rest of the movie. Paprika is not so much of a character study as it is a study of the human mind. The visuals of Paprika are not only gorgeous but also a great representation of how random and chaotic dreams can be.

Paprika And Inception Show How Similar Premises Can Lead Into Different Movies

The Films Had Opposite Approaches To The Shared Dream Concept

The eyes of Paprika depicting a collage a dreamlike imagery from the official poster for the film.

As someone who loves both Paprika and Inception, I like to perceive these films as an example of how similar premises can lead to completely different movies. It all depends on the lenses through which this premise is being looked at. In other words, different authors will always have different takes on the same concepts, myths, and stories. Satoshi Kon makes Paprika a journey into the subconscious, while Christopher Nolan uses Inception's dream levels as a metaphor for how deep Cobb’s guilt goes. Paprika is a slower film, with Inception being an action epic.

Paprika and Inception start pretty much from the same premise but start to diverge when it comes to the execution and the characters.

In Paprika, the fact that dreams cannot be easily understood is used to create some fantastic visuals and have us question everything. Inception uses dreams to bend the rules of time, creating a heist that happens on three different levels, all of which are coordinated through music. Given how different these films look, it is easy to forget that Paprika and Inception start pretty much from the same premise but start to diverge when it comes to the execution and the characters.