ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT
FOUR STARS Three women, colleagues, friends, are each looking for a little more happiness in their lives.
DRAMA INDIA Hindi/Malayalam #ALLWEIMAGINEASLIGHT
Starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha
ALL WE IMAGE AS LIGHT is a luminous exploration of the lives of three women navigating the complexities of modern Mumbai. While this is clearly an Indian film in cultural tone and setting (obviously), Payal Kapadia’s story is universal as it delves into themes of love, resilience and the pursuit of personal freedom. It won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and with good reason.
Prabha (a wonderfully restrained performance by Kani Kusruti) is a dedicated nurse who longs to share her life, ideally with her estranged husband. But he works in a factory in Germany and they haven’t spoken for over a year. At work she is in control, at home she seems solitary, sad. By contrast her more outgoing Hindu flatmate Anu is entangled in a clandestine romance with a young Muslim man, and people are beginning to notice. Meanwhile their widowed friend Parvaty is confronting eviction and may be forced to return to her village. Can any of them escape their circumstances and find some lasting happiness?
Kapadia suggests they can and offers some hope that they will. Perhaps they’ll fend off the city’s crushing weight or society’s gaze; perhaps they’ll find peace in the countryside. While any optimism is kept well guarded, it sits ready to quell a melancholy that would otherwise overwhelm the women, and the film.
As inferred, ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT is about as far from a Masala Musical as you can get. It’s introspective, and every bit a slow burning meditation. Yet patience is rewarded as Kapadia employs a blend of realist fiction and documentary techniques to paint a vivid portrait of Mumbai's bustling streets and the intimate spaces these women inhabit. The city's monsoon-soaked backdrop serves as a metaphor for the characters' emotional turbulence, with the cinematography highlighting the contrast between the oppressive urban environment and the liberating coastal landscapes.
While the surrounds are vivid, it’s the performances which make ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT so devastating. Each of the women deliver finely nuanced characters who resonate with authenticity. Their interactions convey a deep sense of camaraderie and shared resilience, offering a powerful commentary on female solidarity and aspiration in the face of the constraint of modern living and implied treachery of Indian society. The result is touching, cathartic, peaceful.
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