Film Review: My Octopus Teacher

The 2020 documentary My Octopus Teacher is about an unlikely love story between a man and an octopus. Burned out by his work and suffering from depression, film-maker Craig Foster returns to the ocean of his childhood, free-diving in the kelp forests outside Cape Town. Here he becomes entranced by an octopus and decides to visit this same area every day, following her life. One day she makes contact, cautiously exploring his hand with her suckers. Later she starts to follow him in a moving display of trust. The two gradually form a relationship over the course of a year and during this time Foster is inspired, once again, to pick up a camera. The result is a breathtakingly beautiful journey through the joys and ravages of a turbulent underwater world. By the end, we see both death and transformation.

In the early part of the film, we learn that part of Foster's depression stems from spending time filming with the Kalahari San, the indigenous people of the Kalahari desert, South Africa. Here he witnesses how embedded they are in the natural world while he feels outside. This ignites in Foster a longing to find his way back in, a longing shared, perhaps, by many in our modern world. C. G. Jung would describe it as a search for our lost soul, to once again know that we are part of the whole.

Instead of seeking out a therapist in his time of burn-out, Foster returns to a place that he loves, in which he can let go and explore with no agenda. He uses no oxygen tank nor wetsuit, despite a water temperature of around 46-48F, so that he can expose himself to the bracing and unpredictable ocean. This offers adventure and risk rather than ease and comfort, an experience of coming alive, of feeling fully embodied inside the body of Mother Earth, a reminder of the watery wombs in which we all began.

Foster goes deeper when he commits to visiting the same place each day. Emotional bonds and attachments are then able to form. The octopus gradually teaches Foster how to listen and be