The Neverending Story

"People lose their hope and forget their dreams. People with no hope are easy to control. And those who have the control, have the power."

Gmork
The Neverending Story

I recently watched this film based on the novel. Seeing this film, takes me back to my childhood. Growing up, this was one of my favorite movies.

What I enjoyed about this movie as a kid, I still enjoy as an adult - adventure and imagination. The ability to create and imagine is something I really miss from my childhood days. Thus, the reason for this blog. (See my first post).

As I watched this movie as an adult, I could sense an underlying message. The quote above from Gmork says it all. I think the film is trying to make a statement that as we grow up, we lose our sense of imagination and creativity.

In the first scene, the dad of the main character, Bastian, tells him he needs to get his head out of the clouds and start taking responsibility. His father was upset that his teacher called stating that he was caught drawing unicorns in class and had failed to turn in his homework.

So, we can already see that at an early age Bastian is deterred from using his creativity and imagination. I had a similar childhood experience as well. And, growing up I find that I was also taught to take up more responsibility and be more practical.

Throughout the story, the film tests the main characters', Bastian and Atreyu, faith and belief. There are times when things seem hopeless. Though, the story goes on which shows that persistence and belief is the key. This ties in with the theme of hope and belief - believing in yourself and your dreams. And, I think the film gets this underlying point across very well throughout the story.

What I also find interesting is the symbolism and terms used in the film. For example, the world of Fantasia is an imaginary world where anything can happen. And, as a moviegoer you learn that Fantasia has no boundaries - it's limitless. This message symbolizes our imagination and ability to create anything we want. Our creativity has no barriers - the sky is the limit.

The Nothingness (the cause of the collapse of Fantasia) was also a great symbolic message. To me, the Nothingness symbolized the idea of the real world destroying the imaginary world (i.e. being practical and sensible versus being creative and imaginative). It truly was an eye opener to see that there was only one small grain of sand left of Fantasia at the end. To me, this symbolized the lack of imagination and creativity we tend to lose as we grow up to be adults.

Though, I did enjoy the film ending on a positive note of hope. Hope that we could build up the fantasy world again and exercise our ability to create and imagine. And, that ability is why we still have great stories told today.

If you're in the mood for a fantasy type movie, I definitely recommend this one!

Happy movie watching!

(p.s. Just in case anyone is wondering, the name Bastian gave to The Childlike Empress was "Moon Child" (I looked it up). It's hard to believe that was his mother's name. Go figure!)



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