The Octopus's Student: Craig Foster

Craig Foster is the star and producer of the new Netflix documentary, My Octopus Teacher. The movie follows Foster as he spends a year diving into the treacherous oceans on the shore of South Africa daily in order to follow a common octopus. In these daily encounters Foster develops a relationship with this octopus, and she teaches him things about nature, the human connection to it, and himself.

 

Foster is a South African documentary filmmaker who focuses his study on the incredible creatures found in the wild. After years of this work, Foster felt bogged down and disconnected from his work. His mental health was suffering, and so he returned to his passion—diving in the waters of the South African kelp forest he grew up in. He made a commitment to dive every single day for a year. Foster is incredibly intrinsically motivated. He has a passion for being in nature. He continued to return to the water every day not because he was seeking a reward or accolades from others, but because he loved being in the water. This passion for a connection with nature is so strong that he refuses to dive these chilled waters with a wetsuit or an oxygen tank. Diving for sometimes up to two hours, Foster withstands temperatures as low as 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

“You feel alive, you feel awake, you feel stimulated. But because you can feel that water on your skin, you can feel the slight temperature differences, you feel much closer to nature. You feel more amphibious, in a way. I like to ponder on the amphibious nature of our humanness and diving in this way, with this method, brings out that amphibious nature.” --NPR 

When Foster set out on his mission to free dive every single day of the year, he decided to return to the same spot every day, a kelp forest just off the coast, in order to deeply explore every inch of this specific ecosystem. It is this dedication that I believe makes his documentary, My Octopus Teacher, so creative. I love nature documentaries; but most of the ones I watch capture a variety of species and locations. Foster encountered an octopus on one of his first dives, and decided that every day he would visit this octopus in order to learn more about her and the way she interacted with her environment and the animals around her. This documentary captures these interactions. As Foster continues to interact with the octopus, he gains her trust, and she eventually reaches out to touch him. They develop a true bond, and the octopus will seek his physical connection. I have never seen a documentary that goes so in-depth into the life of one animal—it was truly a beautiful film to watch. Octopuses, ironically, only live for approximately a year. Foster presumably met this octopus when she was quite young, because he was able to follow her for almost an entire year until she died. By the end of the movie, you feel intimately connected to the octopus (I cried when she died).

"That's when I realized: This animal trusts me. She no longer sees me as a threat, and her fear changes to curiosity," he says. "That's when the real excitement comes and you think, 'Oh, my goodness, I'm being let into the secret world of this wild animal' — and that's when you feel on fire." --NPR

This is not a conventional documentary. Foster did not set out on his mission to dive with the expectation that he would create a film that follows the life of an octopus. Rather, he followed his passion of diving and filming, and was open to the experiences that were to come. These two traits are in line with key characteristics that are found in many creative personalities.

Throughout Foster’s process of getting to know his octopus friend, he begins to learn more about himself, and his mental health improves. It seems as though entering into this flow state, the pure ecstasy of observing the natural world, Foster is able to figure out what is most important to him, and who he wants to be. He explains that this experience allows him to grow closer to his son, with whom he shares his daily encounters with the octopus. Foster even brings his son, who shares his love for nature, to meet the wild octopus.

Creative products typically have an audience, or a group that they benefit. In this case, both the viewers of the film, and Foster himself benefit from his creativity. We the viewers receive entertainment and even an education on the lives of octopuses, and Foster receives the gift of finding himself.

I really recommend that you check this film out!

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/15/923915545/filmmaker-finds-an-unlikely-underwater-friend-in-my-octopus-teacher

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/my-octopus-teacher-craig-foster/index.html

https://www.netflix.com/title/81045007