All We Imagine As Light (dir. Payal Kapadia, 2024)

“In the darkness, you try to imagine light. But you cannot.”

Prabha (Kani Kusruti), Anu (Divya Prabha) and Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) all work at a city hospital in Mumbai.  Prabha is a head nurse, Anu is a recent nurse hire, and Parvaty is a cook.  Prabha and Anu are Malayalees and roommates; Parvaty has been threatened with eviction from her home.

All of them are from elsewhere, but like so many Indians, they moved to Mumbai to try to make a better life. Living in Mumbai, though, has its own challenges, and the film underlines the fragility of life there.  Even people who have lived in Mumbai for a long time are reluctant to call it home, because, as one of the film’s voice-overs suggests, “There’s always the feeling I’ll have to leave.”  And even if life might be easier than where you came from, making a living there is still not easy. 

This is also a film about love.  About loss.  About absence.  And about living your life the way you want to.  Prabha’s husband is working in Germany.  When Anu asks Prabha if she’d known her husband before she married him, Prabha tells her no.  She was called home, and when she arrived, she was faced with a marriage that had already been fixed.  When Anu comments, “How can you marry a total stranger?  I don’t think I could.”, she’s thinking of her own situation.  Because Anu, whose parents are strict Hindus, is secretly in a relationship with a young Muslim man, Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon).  Prabha’s reply is poignant: “You might think you know someone, but they also become strangers.” 

Prabha’s husband has become that stranger.  She has not had a call from him in over a year – she later notes to Parvaty that he used to call when he first went to Germany, then the calls became infrequent.  She doesn’t know what happened, suggesting “there was nothing else to say”.  And Prabha’s loneliness is palpable throughout the film.  When a package arrives with a rice cooker in it, Anu notes that the cooker is “Made in Germany” and assumes it must be a gift from Prabhu’s husband.  One night, Prabha gets up, goes to the kitchen, pulls out the rice cooker and hugs it – it’s all she has of her husband, and this moment is so delicate and profoundly moving.

All We Imagine as Light captures the lives and friendships of these women, thrown together by their work in Mumbai.  Here, the men take a back seat – but they are still portrayed as something more than plot devices.   There is a moment late in the film where Anu and Shiaz explore a cave – most of their time in Mumbai was spent trying to catch precious moments where they could be together without being noticed by prying eyes, but this is the moment where, perhaps, protected in the comfort of the cave, they delicately discuss their future.  Anu wonders if Shiaz sees her in his future.   She shares her worries about what her parents might think.  She is scared.  And Shiaz is allowed a vulnerable confession, that he has been scared ever since he met her, but when he’s with her, he doesn’t feel afraid at all.

The film’s other male character is Doctor Manoj (Azees Nedumangad), who is smitten with Prabha.  He’s a shy man, writing down poetry in a notebook that he gives her, making sweets for her, and even doing an ultrasound of Prabha’s and Anu’s pregnant cat to see how many kittens she’s carrying.  But Doctor Manoj also finds life in Mumbai hard – a Malayalee like Prabha, he’s struggling to learn Hindi, and he even finds getting around on the trains a challenge.  When his contract is up, he ponders not renewing it, wondering if Prabha would be a reason for him to stay.  But Prabha, as lonely as she is, remains steadfast in her marriage, as distant as it is, with only her rice cooker for comfort.

Kapadia’s film is ethereal and dreamlike.  Here we have Mumbai in the monsoon.  Often portrayed as romantic in films, here the rains are a constant ripple in the lives of those who must continue to work, to live, to love, and to be lonely.  The film could so easily have been dreary – its themes are certainly weighty, and there is an undercurrent of the political.  But the film portrays all this with lightness and grace, and yes, even humour.  The sound design is stunning:  the background score of the film is the sound of the trains, of the rains, and bright piano music that comes in and out, sounding like rain tinkling.  It’s the sound of a lover’s breath, the sound of a heartbeat.   It’s just lovely, and acts as a counterbalance to the film’s deeper themes.

The cinematography and colour grading is equally entrancing.   Much of what we see of Mumbai is at night, after the three women are done work.  Things are much darker, but there are delicious pops of colour:  red, copper, purple, lavender.  When the three women go to Parvaty’s seaside village to help with her move, the light and colour palate shifts, becoming almost bleached out, there’s so much light.  It’s a moment for these women to solidify their bond, but it’s also a moment where they decide their own fates, even if their lives may not be transformed in grand or magical ways. 

All We Imagine As Light is not about women trying to escape their fate, or being trapped by it.  Instead, this is a film about acceptance of one’s fate, of walking into the future not knowing what will come, but knowing that life, like Mumbai, is made up equally of dreams and illusions.  And it’s about the power of sisterhood and friendship that will help you make it through to the light you could barely imagine in the darkness.

Note: I was finishing up this review just as the news about India’s selection for the Best International Feature for the Academy Awards was announced, and sadly, All We Imagine as Light was not the choice. For me, this is another missed opportunity — but I sincerely hope people go and see this film when it releases internationally, as is planned. The Grand Prix award at Cannes was very well deserved, and Kapadia’s film is a jewel that equally deserves more attention.