47/19
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 have intimacy with her lover. Director Payal Kapadia and the cast of All We Imagine As Light reunite to share the most delightful reactions from Cannes and more. !. The first Indian film to receive the prestigious Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024. This film dramatizes many of the challenges faced by single women living in Bombay and highlights their resilience. All the women here are nurses at the same hospital, but that’s where the similarity ends as each has her own set of problems and, one might say, solutions. Desire, fear, regret and unwavering patience are the emotions that alternate continuously as the story quietly unfolds. Perhaps the greatest asset is the screenplay, which offers unusually rich and thoughtful dialogues between the characters. The amount of action in the plot seems enough to provide a scaffolding for conversations where people have room to be unusually honest and unguarded with each other, even when they’re lying or getting close. The acting is uniformly excellent and rises to the level of the writing — there are no false notes, though there are a few tantalizing loose ends. The photography and editing are also quite good at creating a reflective and somewhat detached atmosphere, complementing the quiet intensity of the characters’ interactions. The detachment is amplified at several points where the film seems to incorporate documentary elements or certainly creates such a feeling. I wasn’t always crazy about the music and the way it was invoked, but that’s a minor quibble that many may not share. I dispute another reviewer’s claim that this film was designed as “awards bait.” In my opinion, this film has too much heart and honesty to be labeled cynical or manipulative — certainly no more than any other film that tries to tell an important story in a compelling and beautiful way. And this film takes a lot of risks that I can’t imagine going over well in an increasingly sectarian and puritanical India. I highly recommend “All We Imagine as Light.”