(7/25/09)
If there is anything to learn from Perchance to Dream, it is that it is impossible to construct a dream life. Everyone has conflicting desires, and rarely are they more apparent than in the mind of Batman. The episode separates Batman from Bruce Wayne, and suddenly their relationship complicates from its initial state of mere man and costume. Bruce clearly wishes that his parents were never killed, as confirmed a second time by Justice League Unlimited’s For the Man Who Has Everything. And yet what would that mean for him? Naturally, he would lead an existence defined by dull luxury. So while Batman mourns the death of his parents, had they lived, Bruce Wayne would yearn for an existence as Batman.
Note the way Bruce Wayne blames Batman for all that has befallen him. This is curious, as were it not for Batman, an apparent part of Wayne’s mind, he would be living an ideal life. That he has taken up the mantle and experienced the feeling of heroism creates a conflict between boredom without tragedy and a worthy life born of tragedy. And the strangest part of it all is that Leslie Thompkins provides a rational answer to the whole issue. It might very well be that this is no dream and that Bruce Wayne has suffered a delusional association with someone who leads a meaningful life. We know this is not true, but at the same time, might it not be the case?
Bruce’s parents float through the episode as cardboard figures that exude little more than upper-class sensibility. Thomas Wayne speaks of golf and stockbroker meetings and Martha Wayne says nothing at all. Could it be that Bruce cannot remember the nuances of his parents and holds them to the kind of perfect standard that all young boys do? Is this happy existence merely a boyish dream of one who cannot accept reality and who must construct an alternate identity in order to cope with it? Perchance to Dream proposes such questions without perhaps intending to.
Yet I do not wish to make create a pretentious psychoanalysis out of my review, so I will leave it at these questions, which simply serve to demonstrate the heavy themes dealt with. For the moment, I would like to touch on the suspense and entertainment value that so rarely gets discussed. We love to jump into the meat of the story without actually considering how it works as a piece of television entertainment.
On that level it succeeds remarkably. Stripped of its complex thematic elements, the episode succeeds as a suspenseful puzzle. The viewer is always at the same step in the game that Bruce is; we do not share the position of the grand manipulator and thus there is no anticlimactic sense of dramatic irony. Rather we are just as overwhelmed and vulnerable as Bruce is, and we are positioned to attempt to make sense of all the clues, some of which are provided before they are clarified.
And even if I distanced myself from the psychological implications of Batman’s war with himself in the final act, the scene would remain one of the most powerful of all confrontations in the series. The animation is not spectacular, but the setting, the background paintings, the lightning and shadows, and of course the simple paradox of the battle makes it riveting.
But because it is impossible not to discuss the narrative perfection of the climax, I will proceed to quickly explain its brilliance. After Bruce unmasks Batman, the Mad Hatter, who was behind everything the whole time, tries to convince Bruce that the dream world is not only good, but also inescapable. Who better than the Mad Hatter to dramatize this idea of the fantasy world? After all, Jervis Tetch fell from grace in his gross attempt to create a false and artificial world for himself. And note the striking parallelism in that both Tetch and Bruce Wayne blame Batman for their predicament. But unlike the Hatter, who refuses to divorce himself from his fantasies, Batman willingly leaves, even at the risk of suicide.
Any episode whose main set piece is a battle between two sides of a man’s mind in the belfry of a stormy church tower presents itself as ripe for analysis, so it is a challenge not to delve too deep. I do believe that Joe R. Landsdale set out to craft a thought-provoking episode, but I do not believe that he is an expert psychoanalyst who peppered his script with all manner of profound insight. Yet at its core, Perchance to Dream is about identity crisis. This crisis fits seamlessly into the dilemma posed by this abstract notion of a ‘perfect life.’
It remains the most psychological episode of the series; never has Batman been so vulnerable.
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