Joyce Glasser reviews All We Imagine As Light (November 29, 2024) Cert 15, 117mins.
It is little surprise that after immersing us in an unfamiliar cinematic world, where an almost documentary realism is infused with poetry, writer-director Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light won the Grand Prix at Cannes. In so doing it became the first Indian film to appear in competition in Cannes in thirty years, and the first ever by an Indian woman director.
Kapadia, who did not even leave her native Mumbai to attend film school, is a home grown talent. (She is the daughter of Nalini Malani whose politicised video art you can see at the Barbican Gallery’s current exhibition of Indian art between 1975-1998). But it seems that a film by a woman about three provincial women who migrate to Mumbai to find work, raised a red flag to the country’s Academy Awards committee. The reportedly male panel decided the film was too much like a European film set in India to represent the country.
This will come as a surprise to the viewer, even those brought up on European films.
With the story focusing on the singular, transitory life of Mumbaikars; with the only languages spoken being Hindi, Marathi and Malayalam; with Mumbai-based DOP Ranabir Das’s destabilising, nocturnal cinematography; and with its off-the-beaten-track urban and rural locations, it’s hard to imagine anything more authentic and representative.
Yet Kapadia invites us into her city and ensures that we relate to the three central characters. There is esteemed nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) straight-laced, by-the- book and principled, yet sympathetic to the deserving. Prabha’s personal life, however, is dominated by a torturous adherence to tradition and self-deceit.
Novice nurse Anu (Divya Prabha), pretty, spirited, extravagant and mischievous also has a secret that is consuming her – and her handsome Muslim boyfriend, Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon). Anu is under pressure from her family to marry a devout Hindu and are lining up the boys for her to meet.
We know all this because Prabha and Anu are roommates in a cramped, leaky flat as insubstantial as the lives of its inhabitants, where Prabha looks at the wayward Anu with concern if not with an air of sisterly disapproval.
This disapproval might be partly prompted by jealousy, or even longing. Prabha feels compelled to remain faithful to the husband who went off to Germany to work in a factory shortly after their marriage. Steeled by the discipline she expects from Anu, Prabha rebuffs the advances of a visiting doctor (Azees Nedumangad) who writes poetry and makes homemade sweets for her.
Dr Manoj’s presence also reinforces the theme of the transitory workforce in Mumbai. Manoj admits he is finding it difficult to learn Hindi and informs Prabha that he is thinking of not renewing his contract: unless she gives him a reason to stay.
The third woman is hospital cook Parvaty, (Chhaya Kadam), a widow who is being evicted from the apartment she once shared with her late husband, a cotton mill worker. Despite having lived there for two decades, she has no papers and apparently no legal right to remain. She cannot impose on her son as he lives in a tiny flat with his wife and baby.
It is when Prabha and Anu accompany a reluctant Parvaty home to her native village that all the threads intersect and occurrences propel the characters toward some kind of resolution, if not epiphany.
There are a few problems with this end-loaded structure, not least because they do not take place in Mumbai the city of illusion, but in a picture postcard coastal village. Once she returns to her village Parvaty ceases to be a character of interest, her purpose being to transport the two nurses to this new location.
Here the film is turned over to Prabha and Anu and the teeming city of 21 million inhabitants (London has 9 million) gives way to the clarity, the space, and the privacy of this natural paradise. But immediately after a climactic scene with Anu, comes a similar scene for Prabha. Beautiful though it is – and it may induce a tear – the coincidence seems contrived.
The natural light of Parvaty’s village with its clear turquoise water, sandy beaches and historic caves is in sharp contrast to the bustling city. A central metaphor of the film is the artificial light in Mumbai that dominates a nocturnal economy and lifestyle.
Like so much in the city, it might not be real or what we want, but the idea is that we can imagine it so. As long as there is work and money to be made, people will flock to it like butterflies to light and feel a part of its flow.
This idea of making do with the help of one’s imagination forms the basis of the film’s climactic and cathartic village scene, a catalyst to Prabha’s cathartic transformation.
