A Tall Long Faced Tale

A perspective on A Tall, Long Faced Tale

By Mary-Jane Duffy 05/02/2013

At the beginning of this documentary, novelist Elizabeth Knox asks Margaret Mahy how she would describe herself. Mahy replies: "A tall, long faced tale." Her fantastical response sets the tone for this documentary about a beloved New Zealand children's author.

Characters from Mahy's most popular stories, animated by Euan Frizzell, make appearances — The Lion in the Meadow, The Witch in the Cherry Tree. Some of her Young Adult fiction characters, portrayed by well known actors (John Bach, Kate and Miranda Harcourt) and Toi Whakaari drama school students, also visit. Accompanying this raucous cast are interviews with internationally acclaimed illustrators who have worked with Mahy — Jenny Williams, Quentin Blake and Steven Kellogg.

The interview takes place at Mahy's Governor's Bay home. Knox uses a winning combination of seriousness and levity to get Mahy talking — about the sources of her stories, her interest in "magic" as an everyday phenomenon, and what it's like being a New Zealand writer with an international audience, among other topics.

Knox contextualises the stories for viewers. She locates them in Mahy's own biography. Details and themes seep from the life to the stories and vice versa. Her father, for example, was a bridge-builder and appears in her short story The Bridge Builder. Mahy scythes grass in the moonlight, and, in The Catalogue of the Universe, Dido does the same. Many writers are uncomfortable having their work explained through their biography, but Mahy revels in being able to mythologise her life through stories. And this — the playful blend of the real world and the world of the imagination — is what gives them their distinctively "Mahy-an" flavour.

A Tall Long Faced Tale is not Mahy's first collaboration with its director, Yvonne Mackay, or with animator Frizzell. In 1985, MacKay directed Cuckoo Land, six half-hour children's stories written by Margaret for television. Frizzell animated several of Mahy's stories for television, notably The Magical World of Margaret Mahy, a 50 minute special.

A Tall Long Faced Tale screened as part of TV ONE's NZ Festival series.