52 Films by Women Vol 8. 29. All We Imagine as Light (Director: Payal Kapadia)
Winner of the Grand
Prix (runner-up prize) at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, All We Imagine as Light, written and directed by Payal Kapadia and
photographed by Ranabir Das, is every bit as good as advance reports suggest.
It is an angry film but also a compassionate one, a Mumbai and Ratnagiri-set
drama about three women of different generations brought together by the
medical profession whose circumstances prevent them from living their best
lives, even as they try to make do with the ones they have. They protest when
they can but respond to adversity with kindness and pragmatism.
The heart of the
film is Prabha, played by Kani Kusruti, previously seen in a less sympathetic
role in Shuchi Talati’s Girls
Will Be Girls. Prabha is an
inner-city nurse working at a small medical facility who shares an apartment
with another nurse, Anu (Divya Prabha), who is somewhat cavalier with her
salary. ‘Can you pay my rent this month?’ she asks Prabha, not for the first
time, making the excuse that ‘living is so expensive’. We see her out with a Muslim
boy, Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), trying on pairs of sunglasses. Shiaz is the
forbidden fruit. He isn’t Hindi, so Anu can’t marry him. The couple struggle to
find a place to meet. The cultural segregation is only part of what makes the
viewer angry. It is the sheer number of people on the streets, crowding each
other out, pushing people into poverty and treating them as less than human. We
aren’t watching civilization, rather rats in a cage. Prabha articulates this in
a different way. ‘Mumbai is described as
the city of dreams. Rather it is the city of illusions.’
The third
protagonist is hospital worker Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), who represents the
people being pushed out. A widow, she is being harassed by a land developer to
leave her home before the next religious festival. Parvaty can’t find any
papers that confirm her ownership of the property. ‘I have lived there for
twenty-two years,’ she protests. Prabha offers to help, slipping her the
contact details of a ‘hot shot’ lawyer who may be able to defend her in court. Prabha
also visits Parvaty’s home to look at her paperwork. ‘These are just medical
papers,’ she remarks, swamped by documents that are of no relevance. The ‘hot
shot’ is an older fellow who shakes his head in a resigned fashion. ‘You have
no case,’ he concludes. ‘If I have no papers, then I don’t exist,’ Parvaty
remarks. Prabha offers her the option to stay in her apartment, but Parvaty
refuses.
Prabha has her own
situation. She is married. Her husband is in Germany but does not phone or send
messages. One day, Prabha receives a heavily-taped parcel, containing a rice
frier, but no note – no explanation. Later I concluded that it comes from
Prabha’s admirer, a middle-aged doctor, rather than her estranged husband, as
Anu concludes. The doctor seeks out her company, but always far from the
hospital. Prabha explains her situation but the doctor’s heart aches. At no
point does the somewhat selfish gentleman wonder how Prabha feels. The other
nurses at least try to involve Prabha in their social life, inviting her to the
cinema (‘you can pick the movie’). Prabha ‘never goes’ until she finally
acquiesces.
The opening of the
film betrays Kapadia’s documentary background. We see the streets as they are
at night, the detritus from the day’s street selling, the street still crowded
with vehicles and people. In traffic, two men sit next to one another, their
legs hanging out of the back of a hatchback car; we imagine every seat inside
is taken. Kapadia includes voices of interviews, whom we take to be the people
on the street. ‘I have been in Mumbai for twenty-five years,’ says one (unseen)
man, ‘I can’t say I live here. I can be moved at any time.’ Fragility,
insecurity. It is as if the tectonic plates of the city were made with flesh
and bone.
The point is that
societies can deal with overcrowding if they choose to. Laws can be made.
People can regulate their behaviour. If you create a society where people fight
for survival, you can call it ‘vibrant’, but it is fundamentally inhuman.
Another woman on the
soundtrack. ‘I found a job, looking after children. The children were brats,
but the woman fed me well.’
A woman approaches
Prabha at the counter. ‘Is it true you can have an operation and get paid?’
‘Yes, if you have a vasectomy, you have the operation for free and receive
1,000 rupees.’ ‘Men don’t get the vasectomy. They say it makes them weaker.’ In
another interaction, Prabha passes some pills over the counter to a distressed
patient, explaining they are free.
We notice signs that
are lip service to fair treatment: a railway carriage that is only for women
between 07:00 and 23:30, after which time we assume they shouldn’t be out.
Pictured: Prabha (Kani Kusruti) takes the train in the award-winning Indian-set drama, 'All We Imagine as Light', written and directed by Payal Kapadia. Still courtesy of LuxBox
Shiaz has a plan to
introduce Anu to her family. She must dress as a Muslim, covering her hair and
face. There is a confusion about hijab and niqab, the latter fully covering the
face except the eyes. Anu goes shopping (what else?) but is unable to leave the
city owing to flooding, another signifier of just how oppressive Mumbai is.
Parvaty takes part
in a protest, but there is no one to hear it. In the end she takes two rocks,
giving one to Prabha, throwing it at a poster for Zeus Apartments. Parvaty’s
projectile misses. Prabha’s does not. The poster is torn. They run. In another
scene, they share a meal in a restaurant. Parvaty passed it often but never
went in. Now she has. It is a bittersweet moment of lightness.
The second half of
the film is set in Ratnagiri. Prabha and Anu accompany Parvaty as she moves
back into her village. There is a property there, but it has no working
electricity. ‘She made us carry all her junk,’ Anu complains. It appears to be
equipment taken from the hospital. Does Parvaty think she’ll really use it?
The three women
split up. Anu meets up with Shiaz, who wastes no time getting intimate with
her. He then shows her some caves, where the rocks inside have been carved and
painted to resemble human faces. Prabha hears some shouts from the beach. Some
fishermen have caught a man. He cannot breathe. Prabha asks for space. She
attempts to re-start his heart and breathes into his mouth, bringing him back
to life. The villagers are suitably impressed. ‘We should take him to a
hospital,’ says Prabha. ‘There is no hospital here,’ she is told. ‘But there is
a village doctor.’ The man is carried there.
When the man starts
to speak, Kapadia moves the film into the realm of magical realism. First, he
cannot remember who he is or how he ended up in the water. A woman in the
village doctor’s practice assumes the man is Prabha’s husband, before offering
Prabha some tea. Then the man addresses Prabha as if he was her husband. ‘Come
with me,’ he pleads, as if living in Germany is an inevitability. Prabha is
shocked, but also projects her mental trauma onto the unknown man. ‘It is a
shame your holiday was ruined,’ Prabha is told later.
The finale is the
only scene that might be called lyrical. The three women and Anu sit at the
beach outside a stall that is illuminated with lights. The boy tasked with
looking after it plays with a football. We see the five of them from a
distance, their fates all unknown. Yet cruelty is suspended.
I remain cynical
about India’s ability to address its problems of poverty, inequality, cruelty
and senseless deaths. Yet films like All We Imagine as Light don’t sugar coat challenges. It reminds us of the task at hand, the
responsibility to be assumed, the compassion that should be expressed.
Reviewed at München
International Film Festival, Cinema, Nymphenberger Strasse 31, Saturday 6 July
2024, 16:00 screening
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