35/37
In Mumbai, nurse Prabha’s routine is disrupted when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a place in the city to be close to her boyfriend. Director Payal Kapadia and the cast of All We Imagine As Light come together to share the most touching reactions from Cannes and beyond! The first Indian film to win the prestigious Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, this film dramatizes the many challenges faced by single women living in Mumbai and highlights their resilience. All the women here are nurses in the same hospital, but that’s where the similarity ends, as each has their own set of problems and, one might say, solutions. Desire, fear, regret and unwavering patience are the emotions that constantly shift as the story quietly unravels. Perhaps its greatest asset is the script, which offers incredibly rich and thoughtful dialogues between the characters. The amount of action in the plot seems to provide enough of a framework for conversations in which people are given the space to be incredibly honest and unobtrusive with each other, even when they are lying or posing. The acting is uniformly excellent and rises to the level of the writing – there are no false notes, although there are some tantalizing loose ends. The cinematography and editing are also quite good at creating an atmosphere that is reflective and somewhat detached, complementing the quiet intensity of the character interactions. The detachment is reinforced at several points where the film seems to have documentary elements or certainly creates that kind of feeling. I wasn’t always thrilled with the music and the way it was evoked, but that’s a minor quibble that many may not share. I dispute another reviewer’s claim that this film was conceived as “award bait.” In my opinion, there is too much heart and sincerity in this film to be cynical or manipulative—certainly no more than any other film that tries to tell an important story in a way that is compelling and beautiful. And this film takes a lot of risks that I can’t imagine would go over well in an increasingly sectarian and puritanical India. I highly recommend “All We Imagine as Light.”