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Lucid dreams, Virtual mirror: Remembering Satoshi Kon

Satoshi Kon was a Japanese animation filmmaker whose films were renowned for their unusual

fusion of reality and fantasy, as well as their very dark themes. Kon's films have a distinct visual

style that is unlike that of a typical animated film. The first thing you will note is his use of color,

where he employs deep, saturated hues to create convincing imagery, which shares an outward

resemblance with Wes Anderson's films' use of symmetry, eccentricity, and distinctive visual

styles. Additionally, Kon's characters resemble real people, and he was especially fond of films

about the merging of fact and imagination. Kon employs a technique called hyperreality to create

the illusion of surrealism in his films, such as Perfect Blue, which is reminiscent of Darren

Aronofsky's surreal, melodramatic, and often unsettling elements in his films such as Black

Swan. This technique of hyperrealism runs throughout Kon's films, where his characters and

realistic imagery seem almost real before something strange occurs on-screen. He often makes

the audience wonder what is "true" in the sense of the film and what is merely a "dream." Kon

often plays with the concept of truth and imagination, much as Dan Harmon does with his Rick

and Morty series. Kon sometimes blurs the line between what is considered true and what is

fabricated in his films. This theme of blurred truth and imagination is particularly evident in his

film Paprika, which was heavily compared to Christopher Nolan's Inception in terms of story

and character similarities. All these characteristics in theme and story stem from Kon's childhood

in Sapporo, Hokkaido, where he dreamed of being an animator since middle school. Though he

died of pancreatic cancer at a young age, Kon will forever be remembered for breaking the rules

of Japanese animation by depicting fantasy and reality as much more fluid while retaining a

realistic animation style.