But it is as pure an expression as one can imagine of life-giving love that soars the heights of Denali’s namesake, the highest mountain in North America. It may seem like the act of a simpleton – of someone who cannot remember the past and does not consider a future in which the affection is not returned. It serves as a reminder that many of us already have this kind of love in our lives and should recognise it more often.
“When someone you love walks through the door, even if it happens five times a day, you should go totally insane with joy”, the narrator tells us. We believe that our pets – especially our dogs – can sense how we feel, that they understand us without us needing to tell them and that they care for us no matter what happens. Denali’s emotional intelligence lies in its knowledge that we want to see what we believe to be true. This life includes a great deal of time spent on the beach but also in hospital as Moon struggled with but ultimately survived a bout of cancer, a period during which his insurance company kicked him off his plan (after all, the story takes place in the USA). Denali’s friend and owner is adventure photographer Ben Moon, who got the dog in his mid-20s and has spent his entire adult life with Denali by his side. Most people have animals as pets, but few have them as part of an active life in which they serve as loving companions, fellow adventurers and compassionate co-survivors. Of course, it’s a human being reading the lines. The voice-over narration belongs to the title character, Denali, who (not which) is a 14-year-old mutt. When the identity of the narrator was unexpectedly revealed about a minute into the film, tears started streaming down my face and didn’t stop until the closing credits rolled, at which point I was literally gasping for breath. But in large part, it’s an adventure, a shared experience of a bond that is as strong as anything we can imagine. All of 8 minutes in length, including credits, it looks back over a lifetime filled with comedy and tragedy. It may be the most beautiful eulogy that has ever been written on film. But Ben Knight’s Denali is rare in many ways.
It is rare for voice-overs to be deployed successfully.
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