Delayed Reaction: My Octopus Teacher

Premise: A man becomes obsessed with tracking an octopus living in the ocean near his house.

 

I can't beat the tweet I sent right after I finished this: I'm not sure how My Octopus Teacher went from dull to transfixing to devastating, but it totally did. That's the roller coaster of watching this movie. It starts off as a story about director Craig Foster feeling listless. Most people feel listless with a 9 to 5 job though. He's apparently able to feel listless in a beachfront house in South Africa where he can spend all day diving and filming for a year. Let me tell you, I was not on board for this guy's weird aquatic mid-life crisis.

 

Early on, he finds an octopus that catches his attention, so he decides to track it. It becomes his obsession. He learns how to track it. He learns about its personality and get it to trust him. At some point, I realized that I was fully captivated by the story of this octopus. The film wasn't about the filmmaker anymore. It just because a type of underwater anthropology. He gets some gorgeous footage and captures some truly harrowing moments with his octopus friend.

 

Finally, as tends to happen to a creature with only a year lifespan, he captures the circle of life completing. The octopus gives birth then slowly dies, and he gets all the key moments. I was fully distraught at that point, and I didn't see that coming.

 

That's all that needs to be said about the movie. It's best not to think too hard about who this filmmaker is. It does help to know that following this octopus actually was his obsession. Had this been a Planet Earth episode, I would've felt removed. I would've assumed that they just caught some octopus footage and stitched it into a manufactured narrative. Knowing that this guy was so invested gives me permission to be so invested. And I was. I think back to the pilot episode of Community. Jeff Winger shows that if he names his pencil then breaks the pencil, we'll naturally feel worse about breaking the pencil. My Octopus Teacher is the same idea. I don't care about octop...octopi, octopuses...I don't care about any random octopus. But, when I know it's his octopus, I'm fully invested in it.

 

Anyway, it's a good, short, unassuming little nature doc. When it wins the Documentary Oscar, I won't complain.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend