✦Elzary
Cinema·5 min read·👀 Watched 2022.08.10

The Sandman

A DC dark-fantasy series about the King of Dreams — perfect for anyone who dreams a lot.

2022 · Dark Fantasy · Allan Heinberg · Netflix

A DC comics dark-fantasy series — perfect for anyone who dreams a lot.

The concept

The idea is that the world actually holds two lives: the one we take to be real, which they call the Waking World, and the one we enter once we fall asleep — the Dreaming.

When people feel some lack in their waking hours, they can slip into the Dreaming through sleep — dreaming — and come back with the courage to face their fears again?

In other words, dreams shape our waking lives to some degree, and I actually buy that. Otherwise, how would a book like The Interpretation of Dreams have existed hundreds of years ago? Exactly how they shape us gets touched on in the later episodes, so I won't belabor it.

A few (few, few) scattered thoughts

The opening — loved it. I really liked the narration at the start of episode one (which I only later realized was the Dream King himself) laying out the concept of dreams and why he creates them. As the voiceover ended, the camera gave a little jolt — a sleeper waking — and it gave me this "watching a Disney fantasy film" feeling, haha.

There were also parts I wanted to skip. As much as I loved that opening, not every episode after it was gripping (to me). Episode five, on the fallout of John using the ruby, dragged on too long and got a little dull? It felt like the middle — humanity's undoing — was simplified, then folded into John's memories of being raised on his mother's lies, and so growing up wanting to build a world with no lies, and so on. Maybe that would've landed better done another way???

Still, that episode also showed John has his own softest spot, which broke my fixed impression of him.

The stretch after that left me puzzled, too: the Dream King steps out to lecture John (about the importance of dreams?). So lies = dreams = hope? I get that without the latter two, humanity's fate might just be death — but tying lies to dreams and hope is something I still can't quite grasp (maybe I just don't have the wisdom for it 🥲).

The fun parts. Lucifer versus the Dream King — setting aside why the opponent doesn't step up in person but gets to send a stand-in (and picks the Lord of Hell??) — reminded me of bickering with classmates back in elementary school... a trash-talk contest? Here it gets elevated into a battle of knowledge, imagination, and quick wit, haha. Working in the Cain and Abel story and the Cereal Convention element were fun touches too.

The lead's transformation. Today I found there was now an episode eleven (with two little sub-chapters inside — one even done in an oil-painting animation style, so gorgeous!) and watched it right away. I finally, genuinely felt the lead's "three-dimensional" side. In the earlier episodes his slightly blank face plus that overly rich voice pulled me out of it a bit; at most I saw him learn to admit fault and soften. This episode revealed his tender side — no longer the Dream King who only cares about his own power and pride.

Wrap-up

I wrote out so many little points, so let me sum up. Overall I really liked this comic adaptation: the opening narration, the concept, the little Bible stories, the personified relatives of the Dream King (Desire, Death, Destiny, and so on), the lead's arc, and all the layers of meaning.

Every character here has a vivid style of their own, and I especially loved the choice to personify humanity's great themes. The writing is great too — it doesn't lazily build these characters out of stereotypes. If each of them got their own little short, I'd watch it! Please! (Any chance??)

I later saw the online reviews and it seems a lot of people were even more wowed than I was, haha — but it's still a work I'd recommend. (It didn't waste the time I stole from processing my research papers to watch it, hahaha.)

#series#fantasy#dc#netflix
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