User Reviews

Watching this film at it's premiere in Cannes was one of my highlights.

The film depicts the interlaced feminine relationships that exist in the fast paced and wet city of Mumbai. What Payal and Ranabir have achieved with the visual look, and the colour grade had me in awe.

What I loved the most was the poetic evocation of monsoon in the sweet moments of relief from the hotness but also the hardships that come with the storm. We feel with the characters' journey of self discovery - as they fight the the suffocating confines of our traditional culture and in turn replace it with newness and hope that comes with acceptance.

Congratulations to the whole team. I can't wait to watch it again!

Mumbai, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country, is home to Prabha and Anu, two working nurses. The multicultural air of the city is evident in the movie's opening scene, which has voiceovers in Bengali, Hindi, and Marathi from Mumbai locals. With material shot in a documentary format, the movie begins with a busy Mumbai that captures the daily bustle of a metropolis home to 22 million people. Voice-overs from real labourers who have moved to Mumbai in quest of employment are mixed with the colourful cityscape.

Prabha and Anu, who both work at a busy hospital, Prabha as the chief nurse and Anu as the receptionist, are the focus of the movie. The aspirations and hardships of migrants in Mumbai are embodied by both ladies. A hint of sadness is there in Prabha's tale; shortly after their marriage, her husband went to take a job in Germany, and they haven't spoken since. However, Anu is involved in a secret romantic affair with a young Muslim guy, which is obvious to attract criticism from her family, along with social pressures and Islamophobia, even in the most metropolitan city. Their personal lives and more general social themes are interwoven in the story. Through their shared poetry and peaceful walks back home from work, a fellow Malayali doctor who is struggling with Hindi offers Prabha a rare hope of tenderness and connection. In the meantime, Anu navigates the complexities of her interfaith relationship amidst increasing societal tensions under Modi's right-wing government.

The film by Kapadia is a criticism on the socioeconomic struggles that the working class in India faces. The subplot featuring Parvaty, a hospital cook facing eviction from her own home where she has lived for ages because she lacks the necessary documents, highlights the grim reality of the nation's recent political changes. Kapadia uses a cinematic style that is both personal and wide-ranging. The gentler scenes in the movie, like Prabha reading poetry by torch or getting intimate with a rice cooker her husband sent her, contrast with Mumbai's cacophony.

In the third act of the movie, the story moves from the hustle and bustle of the city to the peace and quiet of rural India. This shift provides an escape from the grind of daily living. Prabha's fantasy scene, in which she finds a castaway on a beach and saves him, represents her desire for a fresh start and human connection.

All We Imagine As Light is a beautiful and poetic tale of love, friendship and self-discovery by Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, telling the story of two nurses living in Mumbai who see a little wave of events ripple through their otherwise routinary lives. I really loved the film's color palettes, first of blues, and later reds and greens. It's depiction of city life and urban loneliness. Its gentle soundtrack, pace and characters. It feels like staying in on a rainy day, looking out your window and seeing a rainbow form from a timid sunray filtering through the clouds. A fleeting moment of magic.

Prabha and Anu are roommates who moved to Mumbai to work as nurses. The city life is supposed to offer more opportunities and freedom but it looks like the stiff old traditions keep having them trapped and suffering: Prabha has lived over a year depressed and half-frozen waiting for a call from her husband who doesn't seem to exist; Anu has to see her decent boyfriend in secret because he's a Muslim and because, as the tradition goes, it's the parents who choose the husband.

We see both the urban sprawl and the coastal countryside with the eyes of those miserable but virtuous women, the noise being dimmed and replaced by sounds of beautiful music. We see and feel longing for love in their eyes and hope ourselves for the change, for the transformation, for the light to shine on their futures.

Very subtle, deep, delicate and inspirational.