• Great Family Film Poll: The Neverending Story

    From Your Name@21:1/5 to All on Fri Mar 25 17:59:00 2016
    Over the Christmas / New Year holiday time the New Zealand Herald
    newspaper ran this series of articles with journalists giving their
    suggestions for New Zealand's favourite family film for The Great
    Family Film Poll ...


    *The* *Neverending* Story*
    If I had to choose, I'd say The Labyrinth was more of
    a childhood favourite, for its delightful range of
    kooky characters, excellent soundtrack and taboo
    romantic subtext. But for the sheer existential terror
    I feel on an almost daily basis, The Neverending Story
    is probably the film that has had the most influence
    on me.

    I questioned if this would fit the bill - a family
    film. My instinct is that The Neverending Story was
    too dark for adults; surely only kids really
    understood it, right in that deep, dark nightmare
    place that you lose (sometimes) as you get older.

    Bullied young Bastian seeks refuge from his daily
    torment in a tucked-away corner with a book he stole
    from a mysterious bookshop. He begins to read about
    Atreyu, a young warrior who volunteers to venture
    forth and kill The Nothing - an invisible force that
    is destroying Fantasia, a world literally constructed
    from the fantasies of children.

    You can take it as a metaphor for the slow,
    unstoppable march towards death but I prefer to think
    of it as an allegory for the crushing inevitability of
    adulthood.

    When Atreyu's loyal horse Artax is literally consumed
    by sadness in the swamp (didn't we all have an
    adolescent Goth phase?), Atreyu and Bastian both
    finally realise The Nothing ain't mucking around and
    they're no longer protected by the hubris of youth.

    Atreyu rolls up his sleeves and battles through a
    number of pointless and often violent trials and
    tribulations. By the time he faces The Nothing, the
    dude has definitely gone a bit dead behind the eyes.

    In the end, the fate of Fantasia rests on Bastian's
    thin shoulders. He discovers he can no longer be a
    passive observer but must find the courage to... yell
    out a window.

    Whatever, the real message of the movie is that if you
    keep your childhood dreams and fantasies alive, you will
    never lose the innocence of youth - and that if you wish
    hard enough you can fasi [sic] up your bullies with a
    big-ass dragon.

    - Leonie Hayden, Flicks.co.nz Contributing Writer
    30 December, 2015

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