In a 2017 interview, director Payal Kapadia made an observation, “One does not need to look too far for inspiration because the life that surrounds us is full of poetic possibilities including dreams and memories”. This artistic standpoint was evident in her first feature, the documentary ‘A Night of Knowing Everything’, and it becomes more explicit in ‘All We Imagine as Light’, a narrative feature about three women in Mumbai trying to ‘make things work’ whatever that even means. The title of the film Kapadia is blessed with those. The surreal title indeed is apt one while trying to capture and articulate such an experience, which, at times, feels like that of an insomniac who wishes to sleep but is surrounded by colored lights and wishes to turn on the light however turning on the light expects the viewer to ‘imagine’ it. To some extent, perhaps the light is not light but it is enough to tell that if we could imagine it.
The movie revolves around the central idea of loneliness, it showcases how emotional and geographical dislocation affect one’s life. Mumbai is a city which is constantly expanding and bustling with an influx of non native people, thus enforcing the idea of being complex through their sheer transplants. The movie’s first scene hints towards the time being early dawn when a cleaner pans the mic to kindly set up their side hawking stands, the city is still dull in the early morning. the city being active is evident from the different forms of transportation, noise, and words from people in voice over which help in giving a more surreal scene that outlines the real setting in a more artistic light. Interspersed images of Mumbai, in particular, have been compared to Edward Hopper: “There is always that anxiety that one might have to leave.” “There is business to be done in Mumbai,” and so on. Survival means “getting used to instability”. After the set of events rolls out, the opening keeps a specific focus on Prabha (Kani Kusruti), who has just finished her job and is on her way back home, sitting alongside Prabha sat still further constituting the scene’s setting to warmth and comfort.
Prabha is an Indian nurse working in a highly competitive hospital. For some reason her female colleagues are somewhat different towards her. They try to be her friends, invite Prabha for movie nights or other social events, and even know that she will never show up. She had a little choice in the matter as it was an arranged marriage. Shortly after the event, her husband moved to Germany for work and hasn’t made contact since. Someone has left a rice cooker in her apartment, postage indicates it was sent from Germany. It’s the only proof that he never turned out to be a frivolous liar. Overwhelmed with emotions, Prabha is sitting on the floor, a rice cooker held tightly in her hands. For Prabha, who is not a very outgoing woman, such times are hard since her feelings are stuffed so deep in her soul as if screaming Mute and choking so much pain and suffering left over that is highly and on the contrary very prudently expressed.
Prabha’s roommate Anu (Divya Prabha) is still a young woman who has been feeling a little too unrestricted in the recent past as she has been sneaking out at night to meet her boyfriend Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon) who is a Muslim. Anu’s behavior is a topic of conversation among doctors at the hospital, and the latter is advised to watch over her. Anu however, is in love and will not be deterred; she wants it all all the pleasures life can offer without waiting. Anu seems to dismiss Prabha’s disapproval as jealousy or petty insecurity at best. Anu and Shiaz have decided to get married. Prabha had never met her husband before the wedding. Prabha may remain ignorant of that mutual thrill of exploration.
Prabha’s friend Parvaty, who is a widow (Chhaya Kadam), is being served an eviction notice from the shanty apartment she has lived in for the past decades and works as a cook at the local hospital. There are construction activities taking place everywhere, with bulldozers pushing through the crowd and cranes capturing the view. Prabha aids the older woman in looking for a lawyer after it is revealed that Parvaty does not have papers to prove her ownership of the apartment. Th e fun part comes when both women decide to join hands in an act of defiance when they see that a billboard for construction of the building they are living in has been placed, and in the process giggle while tossing rocks on the billboard. The billboard reads: “Class Is A Privilege Of The Few” is even too much, isn’t it? Have you looked around at the world lately? Simply said, is moderation now customary?
City life and social interactions build up the intricate façade that consists of three separate yet existing narratives. There is a storyline involving Prabha and Dr. Manoj (Azees Nedumangad) which is clean but also very complex because she tries to teach him Hindi but he also reads her a poem he wrote for a specific contest. The complication sets in… She is a “wife” who has been left behind and only exists in the concept. The fabric of magical realism and enlightenment that composes the last chapter of the film has its beginning in Parvaty’s decision to go back to her village by the sea. By the end of the movie, Prabha, Anu, and Parvaty will seem to be close friends to us.
Their fate matters to us. The fate of their loved ones, Dr. Manoj, we are interested in as well.
Cinematographer Ranabir Da’s who also worked on A Night of Knowing Nothing demonstrates such great sensitivity to shadows for example during the cinematography of the film, the weathered dark blue of the night decorated with distant yellow lights in the barren windows of a high-rise building, serving to sandwiched the bluish style instead of stars. In one of the shots depicting the training of the nursing aid film, nurses sit in a circle with a projector above their heads, between them on their faces is reflected the light coming from the screen but this time the picture was projected onto them but not completely. This is a good metaphor for the film itself, how it works and how its heroes are exposed.
Kapadia is great at picking out details which is critical in a piece as complex as this one. There is a stunning sequence where the nursing staff rushes onto the roof to catch the storm. Prabha is seated in her apartment, the city sounds filling the night as she reads Dr. Manoj’s poem on her cellphone, flashlight in hand, beside an elevated train that rumbles far below her. The curtains have gone to pieces from the wind and the rain is hammering against the windows. Anu and Prabha are together in bed, staring silently into space, daydreaming. Only when they’re out of the camera’s view do Anu and Shiaz feel the urge to grab each other’s hands and laugh, running through the pictures taken from above of streets packed with people, Just another problem. The couple conceals their inter-religious romance from their parents. Anu’s fierce mother continues to bombard her with pictures of men on social media, alongside whom she always goes through profile picture catalogs and derides the men. The beautiful view at the start of the movie makes you think of the dynamic within its core: They say “Get used to the fact that the only constant is change” Changes are the only constant, the only thing one can expect.
Parvaty’s seaside village is a quaint little escape from the frantic pace of modern day living, it does not have the usual background noise of business, trains or construction.
Anu and Prabha assist Parvaty in her relocation. On a nearby beach, a nearly drowned Anand Sami emerges from the water, and Prabha immediately does CPR on him to revive him. The drama which follows is interesting, but best left for one’s own experience Prabha crosses over into another world on a different plane. What she “thinks” may not be the case, but it serves an equal degree of liberation as if it were so.
Kapadia has managed to instill a love for motion pictures in every single scene: Chantal Akerman’s “News from Home” is useful in this context too, in particular Akerman’s indifference and displacement in the city of New York, but also Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose universes have no compartments of life and death, and night, which is a phenomenon where messages from other spheres may seep. The movie “All We Imagine as Light” is all about light, even the dark parts. For in fact the dark areas are not dark at all for in the darkness, there is brightness.
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