Short of the Week: A surreal study of an octopus
Cinema has always had an interesting relationship with animals, serving as the perfect medium through which we can explore the documented lives of species that do not share our habitats. For this edition of Short of the Week, we have decided to highlight what might just be one of the strangest animal documentaries in history.
Directed by Jean Painlevé, The Octopus is a silent short from 1927 that features various vignettes about the mysterious lives that octopuses lead. Although some viewers might mistakenly take this as an educational film, Painlevé’s documentary is much more than that. It’s a surreal nightmare that does not let you go once it has you.
Born in Paris, Painlevé was always fascinated by the world of animals. Instead of paying attention to the classes or the bullying of his classmates, the future filmmaker would routinely skip school to go to the zoo, where he assisted the guards by helping them take care of the animals. This interest would eventually translate to his cinematic obsessions as well.
Although Painlevé is rarely mentioned alongside the other pioneers of the surrealist movement, he had an obvious interest in some of the principles of the movement. Having famously declared that “the cinema is a creator of a surreal life”, Painlevé’s The Octopus is one of the finest examples of early surreal cinema.
In the short, the octopus slithers around like an amorphous blob, seamlessly moving in and out of the fabric of reality. Deeply disturbing in many ways, there are multiple stunning shots, but there’s one that stands out. We see the octopus wrapping its tentacles around a human skull, inevitably reminding the audience of the transient nature of our lives. Within the modern discourse of ecocriticism, that shot is haunting.
Painlevé developed quite a reputation for filming underwater scenes, especially because he developed a custom waterproof box that allowed him to conduct his experiments. In his 1935 essay Feet In The Water, the filmmaker reflected on the time he spent in the water while trying to uncover hidden signs of life.
He wrote: “Wading around in water up to your ankles or navel, day and night, in all kinds of weather, even in areas where one is sure to find nothing, digging about everywhere for algae or octopus, getting hypnotised by a sinister pond where everything seems to promise marvels although nothing lives there. This is the ecstasy of any addict.”
Whenever I revisit The Octopus, it always makes me think of Japanese poet Sakutarō Hagiwara’s The Octopus That Does Not Die. In it, Hagiwara writes of an octopus living in a forgotten aquarium that is forced to eat itself from the inside out to survive – until it turns invisible. Although the octopus disappears, Hagiwara insists that it will live “eternally – most likely through many centuries – an animal with a certain horrible deficiency and dissatisfaction [is] alive, invisible to the human eye.”
In my mind, I will always believe Painlevé captured the same octopus on camera right before it faded out of existence.
Watch the short below.
