Il mio amico in fondo al mare

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.

"A lot of people say an octopus is like an alien. But the strange thing is, as you get closer to them, you realize that we're very similar in a lot of ways." Craig Foster, Founder of Sea Change Project

A lot of people come to an undersea doc caring mainly for the spectacular cinemaphotography. Not so much here because the Netflix original, My Octopus Teacher, is all about the relationship between an invertebrate and a man--the photography helps rather than dominates.

Herman Melville could have learned a thing or two from narrator and diver Craig Foster, whose gentle delivery draws you in the way his octopus love does. Melville could have minimized most of his delivery, whereas Foster and co-writer James Reed gently tell us about this lovely miniature wonder and her world in the simplest, most lyrical way.

She soothes us with her daily routine (Foster spends almost a year observing her without scuba tank (a year is the lifespan of the Octopus). She coyly draws him in like a lover. If you have your Octopus knowledge only from Jules Verne, you be astonished how small she is and loving-at one point, Foster caresses her, revealing how small she is, and vulnerable. Yet, she trusts him as well she should. See this masterpiece just to witness him lovingly holding her.

Foster adheres to the Star-Trek non-intervention mandate and watches how his beloved aqua woman is pursued by a hungry shark. Drama ensues with a slow-burning suspense most horror films would love to have.

You are likely to experience the mental cleansing the narrator did as he lost his depression, connected with his son, and found his place in the natural world, and thus the human world, while he became more intimate with her and her small world:

"What she taught me was to feel... that you're part of this place, not a visitor. That's a huge difference." Foster

A truly touching story of two species connecting on a level that is unknown to most. Animals are the greatest teachers out there, and what a blessing it is to connect with such an extraordinary creature. This just goes to show no matter how unlikely the connection, love can exist in any form.

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.

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...