TV Eye: Power of the storytellers

TV One's Saturday night series of Maori stories, Taonga, is a tribute to the good, old-fashioned power of storytelling.

It is made from a mix of historic footage, family remembrances and dramatic re-enactments but it's the talking heads, the plain old yarn-spinning from family members, that is far more evocative than any of the dramatised scenes.

In the first of the 10-part stories, Hori Bennett told the story of the great love between his two parents, a love which survived the surmised death of his father, Alby, missing in action in World War II.

It was an incredible tale of lives saved - his father's and thus his own - by a couple of lira coins in his father's breast pocket that slowed the bullet that hit his heart in combat at Monte Cassino. Talk about getting your two cents' worth.

The most moving anecdote was Hori's description of the Rotorua postmaster's black Buick entering the Maori village, like the chariot of death, to deliver the bad news telegrams from the battlefields. Everyone drew down their blinds as a mark of respect, while they waited to see if the dreaded knock on the door was for them.

It was a remarkably vivid image, even though it was told, not shown.

Equally articulate and evocative were the extracts from Alby's letters. All of which left the dramatised stuff, the simmering looks of passion between the two lovers and the obviously mocked-up war scenes, like so many add-ons.

Taonga's slightly cheesy style of film-making - the eerie flutey soundtrack which seems to be the compulsory accompaniment to Maori stories, the cliche shots (such as the judge's gavel hitting the bench for a court scene) and some florid acting in parts - doesn't do justice to the eloquence of the original storytellers in their letters and in their diaries.

Here is Peta Awatere, a poet, war hero, city councillor and community worker, who ended up in Mt Eden prison convicted of murder, introducing his story in his diary: "Should I lay bare my soul to all? My love, my pain, my rise and fall?" This man's story alone could carry a feature film.

Despite the heavy-handed dramatisations, the Taonga are indeed treasures, a welcome reminder of the power of real stories and that reality TV's concocted voyeurism denies a basic human impulse to shape experiences into meaningful narratives.

The vast BBC documentary series Child of Our Time, wheeled out for another round, is a fine example of rambling, shapeless telly masquerading as meaningful storytelling.

It sets out to be a fascinating record of human development, filming 25 children from their births in the year 2000 until they reach 20, but it's beginning to look more and more like a handy work creation scheme for Professor Robert Winston who can lend great weight to any TV enterprise by virtue of possessing the most authoritative facial hair in the business.

This latest season is a series of endless recaps in the less than remarkable lives of the children, now just 6 years old, dotted with the odd bit of psychological testing.

Child of our Time is comfort telly for cold, dark nights when you can put your feet up and tut-tut about other people's parenting skills, or lack thereof, safe in the knowledge that your value judgments are unlikely to be challenged.

This doesn't stop the makers from trying to dress it up as great drama, however. "The stars, now 6, continue telling their stories," we learn.

The obvious flaw is innocence isn't quite as compelling as experience. Not that many 6-year-olds have interesting stories to tell.