Paprika

Paprika (2006) is an animated Japanese film that has many themes relevant to Japanese religion.

Synopsis:

The protagonist Dr. Atsuko Chiba is a modestly attractive research psychotherapist working with a new technology called DC-MINI that allows one to enter the dream world, thus blurring the boundaries between dream and waking world. When one of the four such devices goes missing along with a research assistant named Himuro who is constantly concerned with food, she tries to probe what is really happening.

In the dream world, Dr. Chiba's alter ego Paprika operates to solve the problem of the stolen DC-MINI, along with a detective who is also trying to solve an old murder case.

In the midst of their oneiric (dream) adventures, they encounter many people, creatures, and figures, including Shinto, Buddhist, and other religious figures.

You will be viewing the latter half of this film, as they try to discover who is behind the manipulation of the DC-MINI, and what they are trying to do with it.

YUME: Japanese for dreams or visions. In Japanese, the same word means dreams and waking visions, and this film blurs the boundaries between them.

Yume-utsusu: This expression in Japanese refers to the twilight zone between dreams and waking, such as one experiences while daydreaming. In modern psychology, this is similar to the boundary between conscious and unconscious, which is often blurred.

You can see reviews of the film at:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/paprika/