All We Imagine As Light remains heart-warmingly affecting because you know experiences like this are few and far between. Payal Kapadia's film-making voice must be cherished, asserts Mayur Sanap.
The city of Mumbai stands as an iconic backdrop in movies so many times before. There is an allure to it which transforms it from a mere setting to becoming a character itself.
Through the years, the city has been an enduring subject of fascination for film-makers capturing the essence of its beauty (The Lunchbox, Photograph, Bombay Talkies), its underbelly (Salaam Bombay, Slumdog Millionaire, Beyond The Clouds), the mafia (Satya, Shootout At Lokhandwala) and its tumultuous past (Bombay, Black Friday, Mumbai Meri Jaan).
Yet, in Payal Kapadia's poetically titled All We Imagine As Light (AWIAL), the wonderful sense of place and real life feels refreshingly novel due to the tenderness with which the director paints her vision that finds beauty in the ordinary.
The film opens with visuals of a sabzi mandi where the city's migrant population toils around as a part of their daily routine.
We hear different perspectives of what this city means to them.
There are no faces, only voices in Hindi, Marathi, Bhojpuri, Malayalam staying true to the city's embrace for multilingualism.
We hear one lady saying, 'Every village in India has a person who lives in Mumbai.'
This one line encapsulates the city's complexities and the sacrifices people often make in their quest for a better life. Another person says he lived here for years and still can't call it a home. The love-hate relationship we often share with the city is, after all, a part of this urban tapestry.
In Kapadia's film, we see the shadows of present-day Mumbai where the exhilarating high energy of the metropolis is beautifully juxtaposed with unhurried exploration of its world and characters.
After the opening montage, the focus shifts to the hospital setting where we are introduced to the film's three principal characters.
Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) are Malayalee nurses, who work in the same hospital in Mumbai and share a small apartment.
Chhaya Kadam plays the mess lady named Parvati, who unlike her wisdom-spewing Manju Maai from Laapataa Ladies, is subdued and almost naïve about the world around her.
Kapadia weaves themes of desires, unfulfilled desires and longing around these characters as they navigate through the everyday hassles of the chaotic city.
Prabha is a head nurse whose work gives her a sense of purpose.
Outside her work, her life feels vacuous as she tries to make sense of her husband's sudden move to Germany without any contact with her. She spends most of her time taking care of patients and tutoring new recruits at the hospital.
She finds solace in Anu, whose uninhibited ways work as an antidote to her perpetual anguish.
Anu has a spunky streak in her that mirrors the city's rebellious and rule-breaking spirit.
She has a Muslim boyfriend Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon) and most of the time, the two engage in little adventures trying to seize an opportunity for romantic rendezvous.
Parvati is a widow whose life is thrown into turmoil after her husband's demise. Her house is grabbed by land sharks where she lived all her life. Why? Because 'Kaagaz nahi hain'.
The three lives come at an intersection when Prabha and Anu accompany Parvati to her village in Ratnagiri where they find new ways to reconnect with their desires.
Everything about AWIAL is neatly low-key, be it the presentation style, acting, words or glances the characters share with each other.
Within their calm exterior lies the emotional stir up that feels palpable.
Kapadia is a keen and insightful observer, and she has this ability to spark the most heartfelt of emotions out of scenes that otherwise seem ordinary and routine.
Her vision greatly benefits from the cinematographic language of Ranabir Das who renders some exquisitely crafted frames. There are many static shots with sparse dialogue where you can feel rain-soaked Mumbai in a hazy blue colour palette or smell the salty breeze of the Konkan coastline.
It is this visual composition that draws you in.
All those palpable emotions are ably brought to screen by the cast.
Kani Kusruti skillfully captures every delicate, emotional nuance of an impassive woman grappling with loneliness and unspoken desires. For a character that dwells in the past, Kapadia avoids any banal sentimentality with Kusruti's Prabha. The result is a very restrained showcase that hurtles between confusion, sorrow, delight and anger.
Then, in one tiny miracle of a scene, we see Prabha's emotional collapse as she holds the pressure cooker tightly, which is an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. It is a moment of love and longing that Prabha never had the privilege to experience before.
Divya Prabha as Anu brings out the spikiness of her character with little deft touches. She is also honest about her vulnerabilities as she knows somewhere that her boyfriend's religious identity would not mesh with her traditional Hindu family.
I was slightly disappointed with Chhaya Kadam's character.
While the actor is as always dependable, her Parvati feels like a mere tool to bring in a political viewpoint rather than a fully developed character.
Unlike Prabha and Anu, Parvati's emotional depth and personal struggles are largely overlooked and her character arc feels incomplete without any significant closure.
But for all the incessant beauty, All We Imagine As Light remains heart-warmingly affecting because you know experiences like this are few and far between.
Above all, Payal Kapadia announces her presence with authority. Her film-making voice must be cherished.
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