My Octopus Teacher (Documentary, 2020)
Netflix
During my childhood, one of the highlights was watching Jacques Cousteau's documentary on ocean exploration aboard his research vessel, Calypso. Week after week, he would have different ocean regions to showcase a kaleidoscopic kingdom hidden beneath sea level. Funny, it appeared so picturesque even though we viewed them on a rackety black-and-white television! I knew then that Costeau was the pioneer in ocean exploration and is also credited for modernising the scuba gear. It was amazing how much time he spent looking at marine life and narrating them.'My Octopus Teacher' reminds me of Costaeu's film, just that this time around, it is displayed in 4K ultra-high-resolution display and excellent sound systems. The cinematography is to die for, and the presentation opens up the mind to look at lower lifeforms with respect.
The narrator, a burnt-out filmmaker, Craig Foster, retreats to his childhood home in Cape Town for some peace of mind. He started diving in a chilly bay off the Atlantic Ocean. He discovers a world of small oceanic creatures and builds a common octopus fascination (Octopus Vulgaris).
In his 300 over days of diving into the shallow lake, the viewers learn more about the intricate ecological system that lives there. Foster observes a particular octopus and films its behaviour regularly. Slowly the octopus built the confidence to come near him and nibble his finger with its tentacles. I never knew that a film on a cephalopod can be so emotionally wrecking. Craig watches his mate as she (it turns out to a female) go about life, changing its colour to suit its environment, feed on preys and protect itself from predators. Craig has a strict policy not to interfere with nature. Hence, when the octopus was once attacked and had one of its tentacles severed off, he started questioning whether what he did was indeed the right thing to do.
Miraculously, the octopus' tentacle grew back eventually, and it went on to mate. The thing about octopuses is that becoming pregnant is like a death sentence. When the time is ripe, the female will impregnate itself with a sash of spermatozoa deposited into its body. It guards its eggs 24/7 without feeding and drains itself to the brink of death. At the end of incubation, which would be about a month, it would be too weak to defend itself and fall easy prey to natural predators.
The octopus is an interesting animal. It is a mollusc under the class of Cephalopoda just like squids, cuttlefish and nautiloids. It is said to carry a too high number of neurons for its size. For comparison, Octopus Vulgaris, has about 500 million neurons, five times the number in a hamster, and approaches the number in the common marmoset, a kind of monkey. (Humans have about 86 billion.) Because of this and the snippets seen in this documentary, it appears as though the octopus shows emotional responses, scientists wonder if octopuses have consciousness.
It is also a highly intelligent organism. It learns tricks quickly, and the puzzling thing is how it cracks open the snail's shell at the precise point to incapacitate it.
There is a theory that octopuses are no worldly creatures at all. Part of its DNA is alien and had reached Earth with a comet. The DNA fused with the squid but eventually got its own life. It is a master at disguise and Paul, the Octopus, in the 2010 World Cup, had shown the world that they are football enthusiast and good animal oracle when he correctly predicted the eventual Cup winner.
(P.S. Heard a podcast about marine scientists accounts of their years of observation of a particular deep-sea octopus. Hear it below.)
