Conversations in Grief Blog: Grief Goes to the Movies Deep Dive
Grief Goes to the Movies Deep Dive: “The Neverending Story”
by Hilary Furnish
The Neverending Story, a film from 1984, is a movie that knows about grief and loss. While the film recalls flying dragons, the story is really about a boy named Bastian adjusting to life after his mother’s death.
Pain, especially intense pain, often causes us to retreat. When we injure ourselves, we protect that part of our body to comfort and shield it. When the pain is within us, we may try to medicate it. What happens when living becomes painful? For Bastian, he retreats to his imagination. The film begins with his father addressing how his schoolwork has slipped and that he is daydreaming. He tells him it’s time to face his problems. Bastian leaves for school and hides in a bookstore after being confronted by bullies. While there, he discovers a book, The Neverending Story, that will change his life forever.
Bastian’s journey to school continues, and he arrives late. Rather than facing his teacher, he retreats to the school attic and begins reading the book. The book introduces Bastian to the tale of a world called Fantasia that is in crisis. The Empress of the world is dying, and a creature called The Nothing is consuming the world and everyone in it. The Nothing has taken everything from Fantasia’s inhabitants. When a character describes the disappearance of a lake, he is asked if there is now a hole in its place. The character responds, “A hole would be something. No, it was nothing.”
Finding a cure for the Empress and saving Fantasia is the task given to a brave young warrior named Attreyu. He travels through a swamp of sadness, where anyone who succumbs to their own sadness will sink forever in the swamp. Only by avoiding this pain will you survive. In the swamp, Attreyu loses his beloved horse and learns the answers he seeks are further than he can journey on foot. Attreyu feels defeated and almost succumbs to the sadness of the swamp. In the depths of his hopelessness, Attreyu is rescued by Falkor, a luck dragon, and is led exactly to where he needs to go, The Southern Oracle.
The next series of challenges draws Bastian into the story himself. Attreyu must face his own worth, who he truly is, and only in doing so, can he find the cure for the Empress. When Attreyu faces himself before the magic mirror, Bastian appears and sees Attreyu. Bastian realizes this is not just a story. Attreyu must find an Earthling child to give the Empress a new name. Bastian reflects on this and states, “My mother had a wonderful name.”
The quest goes on and despite every effort almost all of Fantasia is destroyed. Unless the Empress gets a new name, they won’t survive. The Empress calls out to Bastian from within the book. Eventually, Bastian calls out his mother’s name. He is then tasked with wishing everything back into existence that has been taken by The Nothing.
This story has a lot to say about grief and what we may experience when we lose a loved one. For Bastian, the world he lived in had become too painful without his mother, and it was easier to check out through daydreaming or reading. Only when he was able to confront the reality of his pain and name the loss of his mother was Bastian able to find meaning and hope again. This is also true in our own lives when we grieve. It may feel easier to avoid, medicate, or push aside the deep feelings of loss, believing if we give into them, we will never recover. When we can name our pain, sit with it, and allow ourselves space to grieve, like Bastian, we can also learn to live in a world without our person.