Abby’s List: A Dogumentary
Director: Mark Sutherland
Screenplay: Sutherland
Cast: Abby, Mark
I loved my dog, Argos, but I couldn’t hope to do as well as Mark Sutherland does in his brilliant “dogumentary,” Abby’s List, to capture my bond with my companion, to make lyrical my feelings and attachment for that best friend, whom most of us are doomed to outlive. Mark’s beautifully photographed odyssey with Abby is poetic visually and verbally with a deserved spot on the recent Melbourne Documentary Festival's top ten docs.
Beginning at the first leg of his three years’ journey with the lean and soulful whippet, Abby, Mark gently takes us across the country and into Canada to spots well known like The Grand Canyon that we have never seen through the eyes of an aging boon companion embarking on her last and glorious adventure with the world’s best master.
Nerdy reviewers like me, however, want the anthropomorphic take, demanding Abby be like a pampered human, and Mark will have none of that. Abby is dog through and through, peeing on a sequoia, eating butterflies, or ignoring Mark.
The humanity in any memorable doc has to do with insight into humans, and Mark, though he would deny it, has laced his work with himself, arguably more satisfying than his depiction of Abby.
Mark reveals himself to have a deep love in all its forms, obviously for Abby but even for others like his English companion, Sophie, who rides for a while with them in the sail boat, she even more chill than Mark. Her brief visit, like a benevolent Calypso, launches the strongest motif of the film—a calm enjoyment of companionship and travel, a complement to Abby and Mark’s unconditional love of nature and travel.
Add to the list of human contacts that expose Mark to further allegations of loving mankind as much as dogkind are the former director of perhaps the most celebrated American zoo in the world, Jack Hanna of the Columbus Zoo, and the voice of cartoon Goofy, and the ghost of George Washington just to name a few. Mark’s soothing, mic-ready voice, brilliant blue eyes, and poetic pronouncements in voiceover make this a doc Werner Herzog would celebrate.
Abby’s List is as charming and insightful as its creator. In these parlous times, catch a glimpse of true happiness in an odd couple with barely a buck between them but heaps of good will. My buddy Argos, whose eyes watched for the love and safety of my family, deserved Mark’s art, but alas, I don’t have Mark’s gifts. I do have, however, eyes that can see a dogumentary’s genius, and I can shout it out in words:
Well done, Travelers.
Abby’s List: A Dogumentary
Director: Mark Sutherland
Screenplay: Sutherland
Cast: Abby, Mark
