Payal Kapadia’s ode to Mumbai eroticises constant movement: woozy shots of passing trains, crowded markets and murmuring traffic evaporate before we can grasp them. These dreamlike sequences are elliptical to the extreme, catching us, as observers, in the perpetual present tense. Fleeting encounters between friends and lovers unfold amid the humidity, darkness and perpetual rain; bright lights twinkle across a city that never sleeps as each worker, spectator and traveller holds fast to its allure to keep it alive. Even in the opening scene, Mumbai reveals itself as a place to be lost, to be healed, to gain and to lose time.
Tender and entrancingly observed, All We Imagine as Light captures the loneliness and ennui of three women navigating life as nurses in the sprawling city. Prabha (Kani Kusruti), grounded yet withdrawn after her husband left for Germany and ceased all contact, now sublets her apartment to the plucky Anu (Divya Prabha). Anu, however, is already causing a stir among her friends at the hospital with a clandestine relationship with her Muslim boyfriend (Hridu Haroon). Their older colleague Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) is widowed and now faces an uncertain future; a property developer has bought her building and without proper documents, she risks losing her home.
Viewers must embrace the unhurried pace of this film, where reflections unfold without clear narrative realisations or linearity. Instead, the camera captures prosaic details and intimate moments of unguarded womanhood from shaded doorways, through windows and down long corridors. Here, the trio moves, visible yet obscured, alive in the city yet isolated and insignificant amid its vastness.
We witness a moment of unfettered heartache as Prabha rocks back and forth on her bedroom floor, clutching a rice cooker sent by her husband– an insulting, parting gift. This loveless object becomes a poor substitute for his presence, while a haunting jazz piano score underscores this moment of forbidden yearning. Her sorrow lingers with the rain that beats down through the open window, filling the room with a palpable scent of petrichor and melancholy.
A twist of fate brings the three women to the coast, where the film’s colour palette softens, and sunlight gently warms their faces. Away from the nocturnal city, the women experience moments of visibility and begin to heal from their respective heartbreaks. While the retreat provides solace through quiet revelations and subtle gestures, the director skilfully avoids the conceited trap of a simplistic city-coast binary. She continues to underscore the charged tensions between the women that were present in the city, yet allows room for self-reflection and quiet bonds of sisterhood to take root.
All We Imagine As Light is a subliminal example of womanhood in modern India. The narrative is deliberate, if in places a little discursive, yet mesmerising in its honesty and affection. A film replete with aching sadness and heartbreak yet shaped by moments of connection and quiet humanity. Though nothing is resolved, great shifts have taken place.
Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light is winner of Cannes Grand Prix 2024 and is in cinemas 29th November.
Review by Florence Marling
Read Florence’s latest Review: ‘Waves’ of Displacement: Huang Po-Chih’s evocative exploration of labour and identity, at Hayward Gallery until 5 January – Abundant Art
