Commentaries on this Media!

Clip 3 - Paprika

by Ichigo Mina Kaneko

In her essay “The Virtual Window,” Anne Friedberg describes the way cinematic and televisual screens in particular have come to serve the same function as a window. Appearing to present a “permeable interface,” such screens amplify the idea that there are physical, inhabitable spaces on either side of the framed view, and that the frame is something that might be entered and crossed. This moment from Paprika reflects this idea—after realizing that a scene depicted on a movie screen is a real-time incident occurring in the chairman’s parallel dream, Detective Konakawa decides to run straight into the projected image, ripping the screen to enter into the other side.