My Octopus Teacher

[osprey_archer]

The moment I heard of My Octopus Teacher I felt a consuming desire to watch it. The film is a documentary about a friendship between a man and an octopus, and it did not disappoint!

The man is Craig Foster, a free-diver who had taken to exploring a kelp forest off the coast of his home in South Africa. The octopus is... well, a common octopus, who catches Foster's attention when he sees her crouching on the ocean floor, holding so many shells and rocks and sea urchins on her suckers that looks almost like a rock herself.

Fascinated by this behavior, Foster begins to visit the octopus every day with his underwater camera. At first the octopus is wary. Such is the life of a shell-less invertebrate: when you are that soft and squishy, everything wants to eat you. Slowly, however, the octopus concludes that Foster is just here to hang out, and begins to go around her business when he's around - and then, very occasionally, to interact with him. She reaches out one tentacle and twines it around his hand.

"But are they really friends?" demanded one review that I read, written by a reviewer who I can only assume hates joy. "The octopus can't tell us how she's feeling! Sure, when she cuddles against Foster's chest it may LOOK affectionate, but it's just as possible she's just curious?"

Well, look, if curiosity and friendship are incompatible, then it's Foster's friendship we have to doubt, because he can tell us what he's feeling and he tells us that he was absolutely consumed by curiosity about this creature. Curiosity can grow into and coexist with friendship. It focuses the attention, which is a precursor and prerequisite for affection. (To quote Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird: "Don't you think they're the same thing? Love and attention?")

The underwater photography is absolutely fantastic: such a crystal clear view of this alien world. (Foster comments that the creatures under the sea are stranger than anything we've made up for science fiction, and he's got a point.) And the ending is... well, it's what the ending has to be when you are making a documentary about an animal as short-lived as an octopus. It reminds me of the ending of Charlotte's Web (complete with an encounter with a little baby octopus later on!), where the animal character dies, but the feeling is not one of tragedy but of completion.

Comments

[oracne]

I love octopuses.

[osprey_archer]

They're so fascinating!

[philomytha]

Oh, this sounds absolutely amazing! And oh yes, underwater is so very very alien, especially the very deep sea stuff, it makes me wonder just how much more alien actual aliens would be.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, and he's not even that deep! He's just offshore in a kelp forest and the underwater world is STILL so fascinatingly alien.

[lokifan]

LOL I assumed this was gonna be about the anime with the octopus schoolteacher, which I was told by a fellow teacher is the best actual teaching she's seen on TV - but this sounds equally great :)

Also, yeah, I'm a big believer in the connection between love and attention. My shipfic often has a lot of the viewpoint character noticing tiny details about their love interest. And IRL I'm all about it. Maybe partly because I have ADHD, lol? Those states of intense interest in something, which can def be another person, are so powerful.

[osprey_archer]

Really surprised this movie isn't called My Octopus Friend tbh, it feels more apropos than My Octopus Teacher.

[kore]

T would love this (he loves octopuses) but oh dear, a Charlotte's Web ending....

[osprey_archer]

Given the short lifespan of octopuses, the ending is almost forced on the film. It's an occupational hazard of befriending an octopus!

[lucymonster]

Oh man, this sounds like a must-watch! I love octopuses.

[osprey_archer]

Cute seems like the wrong word for an octopus, but also, she is cute? In a "I change colors all the time and sometimes grab all available objects and hold them on my 2,000 suckers which each have separate cognitive functions" kind of way.

[lucymonster]

Octopuses are totally cute! Especially this one, by the sound of it. 🥰 I did not know the suckers had separate cognitive functions, though, wow.

[osprey_archer]

It might be the tentacles and not the specific suckers that have the cognitive functions. I must admit I watched this in a dazed haze of "the ocean is so glorious... and beautiful... and brutal..." and did not always take in the finer details.

[asakiyume]

I heard a rave review of this, and since I'd just read Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin, which features octopus characters--and since I like octopuses--I was eager to watch it, but I bounced off early because I took a dislike to Foster. This was before he'd even *met* the octopus; I just didn't like his self-narration, his commentary on his own life and situation.

I should probably go back and try again, though, for the sake of the octopus herself, so curious and friendly.

[osprey_archer]

Yeah, it's worth at least meeting the octopus! The underwater photography in general is stunning, and the octopus is so fascinating, she might overcome your dislike of the narration? (And IIRC it doesn't take that long to meet the octopus, so if you get there and are like "Nah, still not worth it," at least you won't be out much time.)