This movie was broadcast in Spain at Saturday May 13, 1989, by TVE-1 (the only TV channel in the country at those time together with TVE-2). I was 10 and a half. I remember the much I enjoyed the fantasy, the adventures of the villagers and the eccentric Momo that she was the center of their lives. Also I remember the fear that the Grey Men made me feel and their obsession to collect time stealing it to the living people (because themselves weren't alive). But if there is something that I remember above all, it's the movie ending.
On 1986 I moved with my parents from a little town to live in the city. Going the distance, when I watched the movie Momo's town seemed to me similar to my own town that I had left behind three years ago. To the people I met there. That ending broke me in tears: Momo saving her town and recovering her friends not as they were after they met the Grey Men, but as they were when she met them by first time. "Return to innocence", as Enigma's song says.
As the Michael Ende's book, Momo is more than a movie. It's not about time: it's about time when innocence and happiness are the same. When days are long, adventures never end and the world is a truly so big place full of wonders to discover. It's about innocence we lose when we grow, about the wish to come back to those time. Because all at some point we wish come back. At the time to write these lines, I am 44. That ending still continues breaking me in tears as those first day. I still continues wishing come back. Few things more powerful than the memories of our childhood. Nothing more powerful than a happy childhood. Please, be happy. Because life is not a movie. There is turning back for no one.
PS: The touching Angelo Branduardi score in the ending scene contributed so much to these tears.
On 1986 I moved with my parents from a little town to live in the city. Going the distance, when I watched the movie Momo's town seemed to me similar to my own town that I had left behind three years ago. To the people I met there. That ending broke me in tears: Momo saving her town and recovering her friends not as they were after they met the Grey Men, but as they were when she met them by first time. "Return to innocence", as Enigma's song says.
As the Michael Ende's book, Momo is more than a movie. It's not about time: it's about time when innocence and happiness are the same. When days are long, adventures never end and the world is a truly so big place full of wonders to discover. It's about innocence we lose when we grow, about the wish to come back to those time. Because all at some point we wish come back. At the time to write these lines, I am 44. That ending still continues breaking me in tears as those first day. I still continues wishing come back. Few things more powerful than the memories of our childhood. Nothing more powerful than a happy childhood. Please, be happy. Because life is not a movie. There is turning back for no one.
PS: The touching Angelo Branduardi score in the ending scene contributed so much to these tears.