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| Writer/director Payal Kapadia |
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (Prabhayay Ninachathellam) A India France Netherlands Luxembourg Italy USA Belgium (118 mi) 2024 d: Payal Kapadia
Some people call this the city of dreams, but I don’t. I think it’s the city of illusions. You have to believe the illusion, or else you will go mad. —part of the chorus of voices that opens the film
The first Indian film to premiere in competition at Cannes since Shaji N. Karun’s SWAHAM (1994) exactly 30 years ago, and the first Indian film by a female filmmaker to ever play at Cannes, winning the Grand Prix (2nd Place), the only Indian filmmaker to do so, though it really should have won the Palme d’Or over Sean Baker’s overwrought Anora, but apparently Jury President Greta Gerwig held sway with her American preference. Building on her searing docufiction essay on militant youth, A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING (2021), which denounced the takeover of universities by Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government and was not distributed in India, unlike this film which has received congratulations from the highest levels of government (Cannes 2024: "India Is Proud Of You" PM Modi ...), this is a profoundly meditative, deeply compassionate almost spiritual evocation of the human condition at large, set in the pouring rain of contemporary Mumbai, centering on three female Hindu employees who work at the same hospital, each coming from small towns in southern India, as we follow their everyday lives and the bonds they share with each other. The thought-provoking title, curiously enough, is borrowed from an expansive 11-panel painting (All We Imagine as Light (2017)) of the director’s mother, Nalini Malani, a well known painter and mixed-media artist in India, so the artistic lineage is passed down. That title resonates throughout the film, like a Haiku poem, as the light, the lives, and the textures of contemporary, working-class Mumbai are explored and celebrated in this eloquently lyrical and poetic film. Kapadia spoke to nearly 200 people over the course of two years, asking them about a migrant’s experience of being in Mumbai for the first time, adding an extremely tender and humanistic perspective on a story that deals with the hardships women face in their daily lives where an established male patriarchy is overwhelmingly present, as women remain invisible in India, with Kapadia paying attention to the lives of those that contemporary India has conveniently forgotten, offering a nuanced take on how internalized patriarchy can also affect female friendships, given a novelistic scope, using characters as a mirror of society. Among the most acclaimed films of the year, it would have been among the favorites to win the Best International Film at the Oscars, but the film was not nominated by India, choosing instead Kiran Rao’s more conventional LAAPATAA LADIES (2024), the kind of film the Indian government wants to promote, backed by some of the wealthiest men in the country. As a director who is viewed as persona non grata in the Indian movie industry, literally shunned by the establishment, forced to make films on the margins, Kapadia has succeeded despite them, though in order to do so she has had to seek foreign funding, with Ravi Kottarakara, president of the Film Federation of India, explaining that the selection committee felt “that they were watching a European film taking place in India, not an Indian film taking place in India.” While it is true that films co-produced in Europe often demand post-production in Europe, including European editors and film crews, which this film has, where the French editing does, in fact, shape the arthouse aesthetics, though the director spent two months working on the editing herself, yet there’s no mistaking this is a highly sensory and sensual film, where the many shades of light become a portal into this beguiling universe of what is, essentially, an independent film. This is apparently more of an Asian problem in general, having a difficult time getting films produced in their own countries, especially for women in male-dominated industries, though the myopic view from an all-male selection committee may have had other motives as well. Kapadia is a director who's been outspoken against injustices in her country and was among 35 students arrested during a 2015 midnight raid on the 68th day of a 139-day long campus protest against the government’s appointment of actor-turned-politician Gajendra Chauhan for the new chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India. Kapadia was subsequently stripped of her scholarship and the chance to participate in a foreign exchange program, while the criminal case against her, and against several dozen fellow students, remains open nine years later and is scheduled for trial next summer.
A Malayalam-Hindi feature, this surprisingly intimate, meticulously constructed City symphony film opens with a series of voices, not from any of the main characters but from ordinary people on the streets, speaking openly about the everyday struggle of finding stability in the city, which recalls “There are eight million stories in the naked city” from Jules Dassin’s The Naked City (1948). “The city takes time away from you,” we hear from one, while another laments that he’s lived in the same spot for over 20 years, but can’t bring himself to call it home, claiming “You’d better get used to impermanence.” Mumbai is a city that bustles by day and glimmers by night, yet the opening sequence presents a market at closing time in a wide tracking shot during the monsoon season, beautifully shot by Ranabir Das in a cinéma vérité style, reminiscent of Chantal Ackerman’s D'Est (1993), capturing the essence of the city with its vibrant colors and incessant energy, filled with street vendors, car horns, crowded trains, narrow alleys, high-rise buildings, the rush of crowds, a tropical level heat, and clashing dialects, where the city distinguishes itself as an important character. People have come from remote villages in India to try to make a living, with Kapadia capturing the random dynamics of everyday life in a patchwork of transitory spaces, small destinies carving out their own paths amidst a larger need for connection while finding a purpose in their lives, where the idea of home is complex. A penetrating exploration of the lives of three working-class women and the transformative power of friendship, including Prabha (Kani Kusruti) who is initially seen in slow motion on a local train, like one of the unseen voices suddenly coming to life. She is a quietly reserved, yet heavily trusted head nurse, married to a man she barely knows through a family-arrangement (a common story of countless Malayali women), an absent husband who left immediately after the marriage to work in Germany, having lost contact with him some time ago, where her life is left in limbo, now totally revolving around work, while her younger more carefree roommate Anu (Divya Prabha) is a free-spirited, new generation colleague who spends her days stuck on her phone secretly exchanging text messages with her Muslim boyfriend Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), someone her family (and fellow nurses) wouldn’t approve of, meeting him clandestinely, always trying to find out-of-the-way places to spend time alone. When her family notifies her of their intentions to arrange her marriage, making it impossible to choose her own husband, she doubles down on her necessity for “real” love. The older Parvati (Chhaya Kadam) works as a cook at the hospital, whose late husband handled all their assets and documents, without which she finds herself on the verge of being evicted from her modest home of 20 years, thanks to ruthless developers seeking to demolish the building in order to construct new high-rise buildings for Mumbai’s wealthy elite. Economic progress is built upon the displacement and disenfranchisement of thousands of underprivileged and routinely exploited undocumented migrant workers, where a conspicuous sign outside reads “Class is a privilege reserved for the privileged.” Recognizing only the husband as the sole owner, they refuse to acknowledge her or offer any compensation, where she sadly confesses, “Without papers, you could vanish into thin air.” Prabha pushes away the affections of a doctor who’s clearly drawn to her, Doctor Manoj (Azees Nedumangad), often taking her aside, even writing her poems and baking sweets (unniappams), hoping to break through her wall of reserve, but her reluctance to reciprocate his feelings leaves her anxious and alone. As they navigate the challenges of urban life, we see a mix of their personal desires and the societal constraints, reflective of three different generations, all while using the city’s teeming energy as a backdrop to illuminate their inner struggles and fleeting moments of connection, beautifully capturing the nuanced complexities of female friendship, offering a very profound statement on the value of women, who are otherwise completely overlooked and devalued in this society.
With a terrific musical soundtrack by Topshe, whose real name is Dhritiman Das (the cinematographer’s brother), also the name of a fictional literary character in Satyajit Ray’s famous Feluda series, the score sounds very much like Brian Eno in its emotional transcendence, while also including brief impressionistic excerpts from Ethiopian pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou’s The Homeless Wanderer - YouTube (7:07). Prabha may be viewed as the lead protagonist (the name literally means “light,” Prabha Name Meaning, Origin & more), extremely dignified and ever helpful to others, an essential component of her job, going through an intense inner struggle, where it’s also clear she keeps her emotions completely bottled up, which comes in conflict with the more aggressively flirtatious Anu, the source of hospital gossip, reminding her of the price she could pay for her brazen actions. Very few, if any Indian films show any traces of nudity (which will be cut in India), yet there’s a moment following an argument when Anu angrily yet purposefully bares her breasts while changing out of her wet clothes before her roommate Prabha, creating an intentional moment of discomfort with an assertive act of liberation, which in itself is a very bold statement. Conversely, when Anu has sex with her naked boyfriend, she keeps her clothes on, suggesting she’s an empowered woman fully capable of making her own choices in deciding what’s best for her in any given moment, where her impulsive spontaneity is always a pleasant surprise. Relationships aren’t presented in dramatic or sentimental terms, but in these small gestures and shared silences. Despite the crowded chaos of the nocturnal city, where lives are compressed within small spaces, accentuating the effects of transientness and alienation, there’s a beautiful moment when the nurses rush to the rooftop to pull the sheets hanging out to dry from the torrential monsoon rains, like a scene out of Angelopoulos’ ETERNITY AND A DAY (1998), while Kapadia also lingers on quiet, overlooked details, capturing the lights in a market or the peaceful early mornings, hinting at smaller, gentler moments. Parvati finally gives up on her ongoing battle against eviction and with the help of her friends decides to move back to her coastal hometown, which completely alters the rhythm of the film, finally slowing down, increasingly growing more quietly introspective, capturing the tranquility and natural beauty of the sea and the surrounding world, reminiscent of Hirokazu Kore-eda's Maborosi (Maboroshi no hikari) (1995) in the delicate scenes by the sea. Not only is this an opportunity to explore various facets of femininity and the hardships they face throughout their lives, but leaving behind Mumbai feels like an important journey where they will find some form of autonomy, where the mystical forest meeting the sea becomes a space for their unfulfilled dreams to manifest. While there’s no trace of melodrama, or any hint of stereotype, sometimes the artifice of film can help accentuate hidden truths that might otherwise remain hidden and never be seen, yet this film exposes so many layers of untold stories, where soulful connections are deep, yet for the most part remain unspoken. With its focus on the subjective and emotional experience of the protagonists, where we sense something magical happening, allowing viewers to discover what is essential at any particular moment, for the director to show a sexually explicit relationship between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man in today’s India, under nationalist policies pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with a very significant increase in religious and political tensions (India's 'love jihad' laws: Another attempt to subjugate Muslims), makes this story as brave as it is beautiful. India continues to be a place where women are punished for exercising their liberty. These performances are genuine, feeling almost like a documentary, buttressed by the poetry of words and establishment shots that define where we are, where despite being far away, we feel as close as ever, offering clues to the transcendent power of cinema. A tender, beautifully written and elegiac piece of work that has a seductive flow to it, with a slowly developing, hypnotic finale that feels right out of Wong Kar-wai’s CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994), this understated film revels in human complexity and need, accentuating the fragility of existence, reminding us that grace can find its way through any darkness, with light becoming an apt metaphor for resilience and hope.
