International Feature: All We Imagine As Light Review

All We Imagine As Light, dir. Payal Kapadia

Cities are more than just a compilation of concrete and steel that aggregate people to create an economic activity for a society. Millions of individuals are full of life and different opinions, desires, and feelings among the buildings, transportation, and diverse spaces. Twenty-one million people live in Mumbai, India. They aim to survive the daily chaos and adversity that life presents them. Payal Kapadia, who had a stellar debut with her 2021 documentary feature, A Night of Knowing Nothing, delivers a closer look into the feelings of the people immersed in the enormity of the metropolis. Kapadia brings her non-fiction approach to present a realistic view of urban survival and how people have relationships in the entropic situations that life imposes. 

In All We Imagine as Light, we follow Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha), two nurses who work together and share a flat in the city. Prabha is married, but her husband has gone to Germany to work. Meanwhile, Anu has a secret relationship with Shiaz (Hridhu Haoon), a Muslim man who is afraid of presenting her to his religious family, and her family tries to arrange a marriage to her. Even though they have opposing love spectrums, Prabha and Anu try to support each other during the harsh reality of their nursing careers. Anu is enchanted by an almost forbidden love that allows her to navigate Mumbai while they have to find places where there will not be any familiar person to catch them. Prabha locks herself in the solitude of a lonely marriage and the confinement of overworked shifts. Suddenly, they travel to a distant beach community to support their friend Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), and their visions about life shift promptly. 

Payal Kapadia gifts the viewer with a nuanced journey into the solitude of the big cities and the mundane. There is a wise opposition of two distinct characters, not limited to maturity and age, but also their actions and approaches to life. Prabha and Anu are always interested in watching because there is an antagonism that enhances their feelings and motivations. In contrast, while Anu is overwhelmed by the thrills of love, Prabha sticks to the pragmatism of reality. She has no time for pleasure, primarily because it unveils the pains of solitude. It is exemplified when she gets closer to Dr. Manoj (Azees Nedumangad), a co-worker who admires and harvests romantic feelings toward her. His poetries and sensible conversations confront Prabha with what she has lost, the intimacy and purity of the daily pleasures. It is materialized in the form of a red electrical rice cooker, which her husbands send over to her. The object is a reminiscence of someone who is not there, and the lack of conversations leaves a blank space in her soul and being. 

The directing shifts the emotional states in the two chapters, enriching the character's feelings through the cinematography.  In Mumbai, the camera has a documentary-like style; it paints a realistic version of the city. There are plenty of nightly shots of the streets with a blue color grading that condenses the inherent sadness of the ordinary. The characters are constantly in movement. Contrasting to it, the second half of the beach assumes a hotter color palette, where the blue is lighter - and the green is more prominent. The scenario changes, and so do the motivations and convictions. Prabha understands the gap she feels when she saves the life of a fisherman. Her pragmatism becomes a mystical hope when she connects with that man and personifies her distant husband. The camera movements draw a mise-in-scene that organizes itself to build an emotional arc that is intense and beautiful. Kani Kusruti, who is having a fantastic year with her marvelous performance in Girls Will Be Girls, gives life to a complex and subtle character who guides us in this passionate voyage. 

Payal Kapadia does not abandon her non-fiction roots and imprints its realism to All We Imagine as Light. However, she incorporates it to create a plausible, subtle, and beautiful tale about love in the spaces that we occupy and how it changes who we are. 

You can watch All We Imagine As Light in theatres here in Canada starting on November 22nd.

Review by: Pedro Lima