With such a huge lesson under his belt, Foster was inspired to create the Sea Change Project. As he explained in the movie, “What she taught me is to feel that you are part of this place.
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Together, on their year-long journey, the two experienced many ups and downs – all the experiences that culminated into a beautiful documentary about friendship.īut perhaps the biggest thing that Foster said that he learned from his octopus friend, was how to have empathy for other animals.
She can also taste with her suckers, so it’s a very intimate touch when an octopus touches one, remarked the filmmaker. A highlight of the documentary which touched many hearts is when the octopus extends a tentacle toward Foster. Foster hasted that he was able to learn a lot from her about what life is like beneath the waves. The octopus is the most intelligent invertebrate on the planet. The octopus turned out to be very intelligent, and in her own way, quite caring and compassionate towards the diver. “I fell in love with her,” Foster later reflects on his fleeting time with her, “but also with that amazing wildness that she represented and how that changed me.A post shared by My Octopus Teacher by SCP on at 7:12am PDT Even at the end of their relationship, she maintained her ability to surprise him. And then, in an instant, she lost interest in her game and rushed over to Foster and latched onto his chest, as though she were hugging him. But after he studied her movements a little longer, he realized she wasn’t acting predatorily. “There was this one incredible day,” he recalls toward the end of the film, when he found the octopus joyously flailing her arms toward a school of fish - something he initially interpreted as hunting. But the inevitable pain doesn’t deter him from visiting. He does all of this with the knowledge that their relationship will end tragically, as common octopi live no more than one or two years. He even brings his young son out to meet her. He’s so determined to better understand her that he meticulously pores over scientific literature about the common octopus so transfixed is he by her that he passes his days wondering if she dreams - and if so, about what? Following a dangerous encounter with a pyjama shark, Foster fastidiously tracks her recovery. When Foster says, “All I could do at the time was just think of her - in the water and on land.” Come on. I think a more fitting way to describe it is as a love story. In one review of the documentary published in the New Scientist, journalist Elle Hunt writes that Foster’s “takeaways tend to be emotive, rather than scientific,” and gently mocks its “occasional sentimentality.”īut I’d argue that My Octopus Teacher isn’t meant to be a traditional nature documentary. His reverence for the octopus and “the pure magnificence of her” suffuse all his observations, an approach that’s been met with some criticism. Rather, as the title of the documentary hints, he sees her as more of a guide or mentor, with valuable lessons to teach him about the fragility of life and the deep connection between the human and natural worlds. Foster is desperate to know more about the majestic creature - but he doesn’t approach her as a research subject. Though octopi are known to be wickedly smart, the mollusks aren’t exactly well-understood. The unexpected gesture leaves Foster astonished. The slow acclimation process culminates in a rousing meeting where the octopus inches toward Foster and hesitantly unfolds one of her arms onto his hand, playfully latching on with her suckers. At first, the octopus is reluctant to move about freely in Foster’s presence, but over time Foster proves himself not to be a threat. Instead, the film captures one of the most touching accounts of interspecies friendships ever to grace the world. My Octopus Teacher could have easily joined the bloated canon of creative works by men who decide to rediscover their purpose by connecting with the rugged natural world. The resulting Netflix original documentary, My Octopus Teacher, chronicles the yearlong relationship between man and cephalopod. After their first encounter - both of them under the sea, she so expertly camouflaged beneath a pile of abandoned shells that even the surrounding fish were perplexed - he was so mesmerized that he resolved to visit her every day. Then it arrived in the form of a speckled, eggplant-hued octopus. He was suffering from debilitating burnout and adrenal fatigue and was desperate for “radical change” - but unsure what shape it might come in.
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In 2010, the renowned nature filmmaker Craig Foster started free diving in the icy, brutal ocean waters off the Western Cape of South Africa.
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