The Neverending Story

(Die unendliche Geschichte, Wolfgang Petersen, West Germany 1984, 102 min., 35mm)

“You’re old enough to get your head out of the clouds and start keeping both feet on the ground.” Bastian’s father is just looking out for his son in the wake of his mother’s death, but Bastian remains in the clouds, literally and figuratively, on his way to the land of Fantasia. Fascinated by a book called The NeverEnding Story that he finds in an antiquarian bookstore, Bastian succumbs to temptation and steals it. He locks himself in his school’s attic and reads the book all day. As he reads, the line between reality and fiction blurs as he becomes a character in the novel and must enter the story to save Fantasia.