The NeverEnding Story
The last time I watched “The Neverending Story” was in 2013 with Meredith over at her parent’s house. I enjoyed it at the time, just as I had growing up. When ’80s All Over covered it on their podcast, I was a little startled by the negativity towards the film, but it made me curious to revisit it. With DragonCon approaching, and the recent passing of director Wolfgang Petersen, the time seemed right.
I’ve never read the novel by Michael Ende, but I have to imagine the story’s ideas of breaking reality and fantasy bleading into the real world work better on the page than they do in the movie. Rewatching it now, bringing Bastian (Barret Oliver) into the narrative he’s reading makes little to no sense because books never change; not every reader is going to be depressed and lonely like Bastian is. The filmmakers certainly work to imply that Bastian’s actions are having an impact on the world of Fantasia throughout the film, and I think that works as narrative when you’re younger, but if you think about it for one moment as an adult, the film’s internal logic breaks.
In 1991, my grandmother Mitchell passed away from blood clots after having a brain tumor. I got depressed, and let my schoolwork go to the wasteside. That term, I failed three courses, and was on the verge of failing 7th grade. I definitely felt like Bastian does in this film; I also had adults like his father, who tried to use words to motivate me or try to make me feel bad about what was happening without really trying to understand why. Add to that the bullies who throw Bastian in a trash can, and it’s no wonder he takes this mysterious book from a bookstore, and locks himself in the school attic to read instead of taking his math test which, how many schools have attics? And is his father so out of touch with him he wouldn’t notice Bastian just doesn’t come home? Since the film only covers half of the book, I’m curious how much of that is left out, if any. The scene with his dad is all exposition, and yeah, it’s awful and probably could have been excised completely.
Like a lot of ’80s films, the seams are evident in the visual effects; the Empress’s castle in its initial establishing shot is clearly a matte painting rather than a set, and the world of Fantasia feels very small compared to something like Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth, or even Hogwarts. That being said, I do like the world Petersen and his collaborators have created- it’s evocative and interesting, as we see Atreyu (Noah Hathaway), a warrior, go on a quest to try and save the Empress, who is dying as the Nothing ravages the world of Fantasia. What is the Nothing? It’s basically a force that is a stand-in for depression; seeing as though Atreyu manages to survive it as long as he can with Falkor, the beloved luck dragon with the puppy face, even when the “planet” of Fantasia is destroyed, it can’t be that bad, can it? Again, the film’s internal logic is broken, because there’s a lot here that doesn’t make sense. There’s a reason a lot of fantasy films tip towards 2 hours or longer, especially when they’re adapting a book; the worldbuilding matters, and with that, the rules of the world must be established. This film seems to be making it up as it goes along, and at a running time- 94 minutes- ill-equipped to keep up.
I don’t know that I’ve ever been as broken up as some in my generation about the death of Artax in the Swamps of Sadness. It’s certainly intended to have weight, but because of the lack of real identity we get in Atreyu, and his connection to Artax that early in the story, it just doesn’t have the punch it should have. A big part of that is because, even though Atreyu is supposed to be the hero, he feels like a supporting character since the main character is ultimately Bastian. If the film was just about the world of Fantasia, I think that connection would work, but the writing just isn’t there in Petersen and Herman Weigel’s screenplay. The ending does work for me because it finally brings Bastian into the narrative in a significant way, and he’s responsible for the way the story ends…at least in the movie.
Listening to the score by Giorgio Moroder and Klaus Doldinger now, I think the theme music is good, but it ultimately doesn’t land a lot of the emotional punches it’s intended to do, in part because the film is so thinly developed narratively, and thematically doesn’t really seem to know what it wants to say. It’s disappointing to say that about a film I enjoyed as a kid, but I can’t really find much positive to say about it now.
