Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light opens to the perpetual shuffle of Mumbai as its subject. In a documentarian tone, we hear reflections of people’s reasons for moving to the city—statements like, “it’s the place to be,” and stories of migration from smaller towns sift through while we watch crowded train stations and streets. 

Continuing with this broad lens on the city, it takes some time for us to recognise the protagonists of the film. Three nurses—Prabha, Anu and Parvaty—are gradually introduced to us during their shifts at a hospital. Prabha is a responsible and somewhat stoic senior nurse, resigned to her life as a married woman despite her husband’s absence. Parvaty is a widow, facing eviction from her apartment of over 20 years because her husband did not leave behind any papers proving her ownership of it. And  Anu—the youngest of the three—is rebellious and playful, secretly dating a Muslim boy (a controversy for a Hindu in Mumbai) against her parent’s plans to arrange her into a marriage. 

The first Indian film to compete for the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival since 1994, All We Imagine As Light was recognised with the prestigious Grand Prix—and it’s easy to see why.

It presents us with an exploration of vital social issues—-that of class, religious segregation, marriage conventions—but in such a subtle, understated way, in which the women’s stories all speak for themselves.

Kapadia is known for exploring issues of social justice. Her first feature film, A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021), was a documentary on the student strikes at her university against a right-wing politician appointed as chair of the school. All We Imagine As Light is Kapadia’s narrative debut. 

Much of the film’s effectiveness, I think, relates to the way in which we are offered information—dramatic tension results from the audience slowly discovering facts about the women, rather than their actions propelling a plot forward. This passivity plays into the slow, reflective tone of the movie, while indirectly creating a sense of the women being a part of larger systems which have influence on their lives.  

We don’t learn that Prabha has a husband, for instance, until midway through the film, when a mysterious European rice cooker arrives at her apartment. We find out that her husband left for Germany years ago, just weeks after their arranged marriage. Though she has a new romantic suitor — a doctor at the hospital who writes her poetry — she feels weighed down by convention, declining his advances. All the while, a heart-breaking sense of stifled longing hides behind her stoic facade as she observes Anu rebelling with her Muslim boyfriend Shiaz.

Anu, in a way, provides continual relief from Prabha’s repression. A drifting, dreamlike piano melody follows her in her playful escapades with her boyfriend, their intimacy always languid and free-spirited within the constraints of their secrecy. 

A mutual theme shared between the women, however, is a sense of alienation in Mumbai. “I’ve lived here for 20 years, but it never felt real,” says Parvaty. We are continually positioned to reflect on how this connects to a common experience of never feeling grounded in the city. Mid-way we see a scene of people in the city dancing in slow-motion, overlayed with melancholy music — “you have to keep believing in the illusion in order to survive,” echoes an off-screen voice, interweaving again a documentary-like, broader lens on the film’s themes. How strong this belief in an illusion has to be evidently relates to class—in one particularly funny moment, Parvaty and Prabha mischievously throw some rocks at an advertisement outside Parvaty’s apartment which reads “Class is a privilege reserved for the privileged.”

In a sense, the film rejects the idea that Mumbai is superior to the rural areas people have immigrated from. When Parvaty loses her apartment, Prabha and Anu help her return to her hometown in the countryside, and it's only here that we glimpse a sense of relief. This is particularly marked by the film’s sense of time—we span across weeks in the first half of the film in Mumbai, shots filled with the women working, cleaning or cooking, whereas for the whole of the second-half, just one day in the countryside lingers along spaciously. 

All in all, it’s a touching reflection on Mumbai, the tensions of tradition experienced as a female in India, and the experience of living in a city which, for those without privilege, triumphs more in the imagination rather than in reality.

Headlining the 72nd edition of MIFF, All We Imagine As Light will hit Australian cinemas on Boxing Day.