La Sagesse de la pieuvre

Everyone do yourself a favour and watch this beautiful documentary about Craig Foster and the wonderful relationship he had with an octopus. It highlights how highly intelligent these beautiful creatures are. I can't believe I cried over an Octopus

Such an amazing documentary, told from four hearts, about an unlikely connection between a human and an octopus. What's amazing about this movie is that was capable of making me feel good about nature as well as humans. The mere fact that we both want to connect, just shows that there is a stronger connection between us and the animal kingdom than most of us realize. Absolute must watch...

Decades ago, as a child, I read a book about a guy who befriends an octopus, becoming aware of its intelligence and curiosity and then having to live through the drama of his friend dying. My Octopus Teacher is basically the same thing, only it's a documentary. Octopi are marvelous creatures, both in their weird biology and their incredible intelligence. Numerous anecdotes have them use tools, enjoy beauty and create artistic work, be able to personally connect to the people they encounter. That is amazing from a completely non social creature that can rarely live more than a year. In terms of intelligence, no animal or man comes close in that small time span.

But these are just facts. The documentary is a personal account from a guy who by chance became fascinated with such a creature and spent a year diving underwater without a wetsuit or an oxygen tank and studying it, earning its trust and caring about it. You can see, in his narration, how difficult it was to just keep the distance necessary to observe the life of the octopus and not become part of it. There are scenes when the creature jumps on his hand and then explores his chest, cradling to it and accepting warmth and petting. It is that personal approach to the documentary which makes is so powerful.

Bottom line: this is the story of the life of one specimen of Octopus Vulgaris, as narrated and video documented by the film maker. The images are very beautiful and the account personal and lacking the fillers or pointless flourishings of common documentaries. The viewer is drawn into the life of this amazing creature. It's a good film.

If "My Octopus Teacher" does win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature as predicted, (it's already won the BAFTA), I don't think I'll be complaining even if I think "Collective" the better film and the more worthy winner but that's only because "Collective" tells the more important story and is the more radical film. "My Octopus Teacher" is fairly radical, too, and as documentary filmmaking goes it's a beautiful job of work with some of the finest 'natural' cinematography I've ever seen, ("Blue Planet" eat your heart out).

It even has a plot of sorts and two leading players. One is Craig Foster, an explorer and cinematographer whose daily dives to a kelp forest in the seas off South Africa leads him to the films second character, a female octopus that Foster becomes very attached to and who, it would appear, becomes very attached to him, literally at times. Octopuses, it turns out, are highly intelligent creatures and Foster's octopus seems more intelligent than most, an 'alien' creature that can recognize an individual human being and want to be with that human, albeit in her own natural environment.

Of course, the octopus is also a wild animal in a wild, natural environment and much as he might want to Foster knows he can do nothing to change that; as we say, he has to let nature take its course while at the same time allowing himself to be 'taught' by the octopus, taught not just to care about the octopus itself but creatures in general and, strange as it may seem, interacting with this creature brough Foster closer to his own son. Superbly photographed and edited, its only falut lies in Foster's rather deadpan narration. He may be a nice guy but is somewhat dull in his delivery; luckily his camera speaks volumes.

I had mixed reactions to this documentary about a man's love for an octopus. I've seen a lot of reviewers complain that it's yet one more story about a self-absorbed privileged white guy whining about his white person problems and making the underwater natural world all about himself. I can see how people might react to the movie that way I guess, but I didn't feel that way while watching it. Instead, I thought it was a visually breathtaking film about our relationship with and responsibility to the natural world. The way he approached his subject didn't seem that intrusive to me, and there were several moments where he explicitly said he did not interfere with nature even when he wanted to because he didn't want to upset the natural balance. I thought this film was a good reminder that we co-exist with the natural world and it's to mankind's benefit to respect it and try to understand it, if for no other reason than that our lives depend on it.

And and can I just say that the octopus may just be one of the most fascinating creatures on the face of the earth?

Grade: A-