"Les amours de la pieuvre" or "The Love Life of an Octopus" is among the later and better-known works by famous French documentarian Jean Painlevé. And I can see why. The use of color here helps a lot, the scenes depicted are nice to watch and Painlevé's comments are fairly informative. Overall, I enjoyed the watch here. The soundtrack is certainly something to get used to, but if you have seen some of the man's other works, you will not be surprised anymore. Octopusses are certainly very interesting creatures, somewhat very gross, yet fascinating nonetheless. Painlevé must have liked them too as they are one of the exceptions about which he made two films, one very early in his career (40 years earlier) and one very late. I recommend this almost 50-year-old film. Thumbs up.
3 Reviews
Eight Arms to Hold You
boblipton8 September 2018
Thirty years after he first had an octopus slither over a sleeping woman in DEVIL FISH, Painlevé returns to the subject, with sound and beautiful color photography --- well, it would be beautiful, if it weren't for the fact they're octopuses, Painlevé's narration is dark and scary in tone and Pierre Henry's score is creepy. I'd say it's standard for him, but nothing he did was standard.
Like many of his shorts, this one concerns itself with the peculiarities of his subject, and in particular, its reproduction. I'm not going to go into details -- the IMDb has warned me about frank and accurate language before, particularly when it involves words with precisely four letters in them -- but if you want to learn about the octopus, this is a good film for it.
Like many of his shorts, this one concerns itself with the peculiarities of his subject, and in particular, its reproduction. I'm not going to go into details -- the IMDb has warned me about frank and accurate language before, particularly when it involves words with precisely four letters in them -- but if you want to learn about the octopus, this is a good film for it.
Not great
gbill-748771 May 2024
I don't know, any description of octopi that leads with "horrific" and never mentions "intelligence" has a fundamental flaw. The viewpoint of these extraordinary creatures expressed here seems straight out of the 19th century, portraying them as bizarre monsters. The footage also seems confined to the seashore and aquarium tanks, and the wonky soundtrack is a complete miss. It's redeemed somewhat by the shots of the female octopus tending her strands of eggs and the babies popping out like popcorn, but keep your expectations low with this one. It's just too bad it didn't treat these creatures with the respect it should have.
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