The Neverending Story

One of my all-time favourite movies as a kid was The Neverending Story. I simply loved it. It was a wonderful adventure, full of emotions, struggles, and triumph. To this day, I still love this movie. In fact, I just watched it this past weekend.

Recently, I have seen some people commenting online about this movie being very traumatizing to children, especially with this scene:

A lot of people in fact commenting that it's "a psychological horror show", as the source of where I found this image from mentioned.

I have to say I strongly disagree with the assessment that this movie is not good for children. Today's world is trying really hard to protect children in bubble wrap, and shield them from anything they consider unpleasant. This is creating kids who have problems with dealing with their emotions, or even displaying any kind of empathy towards others.

Yes, when I watch this scene, even at 42, I cry. I love animals, and the fact that Artax died in the Swamp of Sadness because he let the feelings of depression overwhelm him, well, that's enough to make anyone cry. But is it traumatizing?

If you really watch the movie, you will notice that the plot of the book Bastian is reading is pretty much similar to what he's going through in real life. His mother died, he's struggling in school, he's not interested in the things he used to be interested in, and seems really drawn into a fantasy world. This boy loves reading so much, that he loses himself in the pages of books, mostly because his real life is very difficult to deal with presently.

As the movie begins, his father (who has the most disgusting breakfast shake in the world, I might add) tells him to get his head out of the clouds and start facing his responsibilities, as he was having problems getting to school on time... Mostly due to the bullies he had to deal with on a daily basis. Basically, Bastian's life was chaotic. Then he meets a weird book store owner, who cautions him about a book being too dangerous for him to read, because all those other books he reads are safe.

Thus begins the book part of the storytelling. The Nothing, the mythical-like unknown force or beast that was destroying all of Fantasia, was the symbolic death of Bastian's fantasy world, as he was contemplating the words his father told him. Everything that happens in the movie was a direct result of what was going on in his life. This should have been evident in the second challenge, the mirror, where the Warrior Atreyu looks into a mirror to see his true self, and sees Bastian reading the book in the school's attic.

Bastian winds up saving Fantasia by renaming the Empress to his mother's name, which for those who couldn't hear it was Moonchild. With a name like Moonchild, is it any wonder that Bastian had a vivid imaginary world? He clearly was raised by his mother, making her death even the more tragic, because now he's living with a father who clearly doesn't understand him the way that his mother did.

This story continues to move me and I still love watching this movie. Every time I see it, I notice a new parallel I didn't notice before between Bastian and the Fantasia world. This last time, I finally realized the name of his mother (as I never could understand what he shouts out the window until now), as well as the conversation between Atreyu and G'mork, which goes as below:

G'mork: Foolish boy. Don't you know anything about Fantasia? It's the world of human fantasy. Every part, every creature of it, is a piece of the dreams and hopes of mankind. Therefore, it has no boundaries.

Atreyu: But why is Fantasia dying then?

G'mork: Because people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So the Nothing grows stronger.

Atreyu: What is the Nothing?

G'mork: It's the emptiness that's left. It's like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.

Atreyu: But why?

G'mork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control. And whoever has control has the Power.

Bam! What a scene! What a dialogue! (What a parallel for today's world, am I right?) This conversation really opened my eyes over this last viewing of this wonderful movie.

I find today's criticisms of this movie to be very harsh and it makes me worried about the future generation becoming more difficult to deal with their emotions or empathize with others, which this world really needs more of. In fact, I'd go as far to accuse the critics of being exactly like G'mork in this regard. They're trying to control the emotional world of children, and that just plain wrong.

Now I'm not going to sit here and tell you I am an emotionally well human being, because I do struggle with my emotions from time to time. I have a hard time dealing with my own personal life, just as Bastian did. But I can feel sympathy and sadness and fear when watching the movie, just as Bastian did while reading the book. Not only did I cry when Artax died, but so did Bastian. In fact, the Child-like Empress even mentioned that others are following along with Bastian's story just as he's been following Atreyu's adventures, which is a very clever way of connecting the audience to the main character.

I worry that we are shielding kids from sad or scary things. We consider movies that make us cry traumatizing. When I was a kid, they were known as "tear-jerkers". What's wrong with crying? What's wrong with feeling sad or depressed or grief? Life isn't all rainbows and unicorns. There are dark things going on in the world, and kids need to learn how to process their emotions and how to handle the bad just as they had to figure out how to handle pleasant emotions.

For those not sure about showing their kids this movie, please don't hesitate to. At 42, I've still ranked it somewhere in my top 10 movies of all time. Yes, there are sad and scary things going on in the movie, but that was the point. Basically, if you liked Pixar's Inside Out, you will like this movie, too.

Thanks for reading, for those who do.