The Love Life of the Octopus

Les amours de la pieuvre

France

1967

14 Min

Color

French

Currently 4.2/5 Stars.
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DIR Jean Painlevé, Geneviève Hamon

MUSIC Pierre Henry

Synopsis

An octopus slithers into a narrow crack near the shore; we see its eye up close; blowing water propels it through water. It feeds on a crab. In spring it’s time to mate. A male grabs a female; he inserts his third arm in her respiratory cavity. We watch another pair: a larger female is the aggressor here. Mating is repeated over hours and days. With high magnification, we see many sperm; she releases strings of fertilized eggs that hang from the roof of a nest. She guards it for a month, fanning the strings to circulate water for oxygen and cleanliness. We watch the eggs up close develop at 1,400 times nature’s rate. Then they’re born and propel away. —IMDb

Director

Jean Painlevé

Jean Painlevé (20 November 1902 – 2 July 1989) was a film director, actor, translator, animator, critic and theorist. He was the son of mathematician and twice prime-minister of France, Paul Painlevé.

Painlevé first came to the cinema as an actor, alongside Michel Simon, and also as assistant director in the René Sti unfinished film L’inconnue des six jours (The Unknown Woman of Six Days), 1926. (Later, he would appear as “chief ant handler” in Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou, 1928). Soon, he was shooting his own films, starting with L’œuf d’épinoche : de la fécondation à l’éclosion, 1927.

Painlevé sometimes scored the music and background sounds for his films, such as in Les Oursins, where the collage of noise is a homage to Edgar Varese.

In order to shoot scenes underwater, Painlevé encased his camera in a custom designed waterproof box, fitted with a glass plate which allowed the camera’s lens to reach through. Understandably… read more

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jordaan mason

22Apr12

okay i just want to be clear that as someone who is terrified of octopi this was the most horrific and beautiful thing ever filmed basically.

Kenji

24Nov11

Octopuses are stupendous creatures.After so many TV wildlife programmes we take for granted extraordinary wonders. Here we have amorous goings on as filmed in the 60s by husband and wife Painlevé and Hamon. Among many qualities (e.g magnificent versatile escapologists), Octopuses are known for changing colour when expressing emotions; maybe some enjoying rapturous foreplay are tickled pink.

Dimitris Psachos likes this

Malik

5Jan12

I'm pretty sure you mean Octopuses are the devils of the sea. The idea of being eaten by one is the most frightening thought that can be imagined.