My Octopus Teacher (2020)

Not just a documentary (9 January 2021)

Why I watched it? Because I love octopuses and the sea. Why I gave it a 10? Because it was something more than just a documentary.

It was a personal experience. It got evident from the start. Great captures and the personal storytelling of Foster along with accurate and calming music did it: I immediately relaxed and put myself in his shoes. The rest was history. Amazing information conveyed along with great scenes and meanings.

I liked the format. Most documentaries focusing on animals calm me, but this format was just something else. It was closer to the experience of reading a book for me, and that's something I have never felt before for a movie/series.

a profoundly moving, visually stunning documentary that elevates a simple premise into a transformative emotional experience. It follows South African filmmaker Craig Foster as he returns daily to a cold-water kelp forest near Cape Town, slowly forming an intimate, almost meditative bond with a wild octopus he encounters there. The film’s greatest strength is how it intertwines awe-inspiring natural observation with a deeply personal story of burnout and healing. Foster’s encounters with the octopus become a quiet school of life: through watching her ingenuity, vulnerability and resilience, he rediscovers curiosity, patience and a sense of belonging in the natural world. The creature herself is filmed with astonishing sensitivity, revealing camouflage, hunting strategies and play that feel more like finely choreographed character work than conventional wildlife footage. Cinematically, the documentary is exceptional. The underwater photography turns the kelp forest into a dreamlike cathedral of light and motion, while the editing builds a gentle, narrative rhythm that makes one small cove feel as epic as any global travelogue. What lingers most, though, is the emotional clarity: by the time the octopus’s life cycle nears its end, the viewer feels the weight of that loss as keenly as Foster does, and the film’s quiet plea for empathy and ocean conservation lands with rare sincerity.