Film: “All We Imagine as Light” @ Film Forum
It’s hard to believe that in a city of 21 million people, there’s an opportunity for peace and quiet. Yet in Payal Kapadia’s new film “All We Imagine as Light,” we find three professional women in Mumbai who’ve reached a crossroads in their personal lives—and are quietly contemplating what to do next.
The three work in a Mumbai hospital; two are nurses and share a cold-water flat, while the third works in food services. Prabha (Kani Kusruti), the elder of the nurses, is in her mid-30s, and is concerned that her husband (via an arranged marriage), who is living in Germany, has not called or written in over a year. Anu (Diva Prabha), the younger nurse, is secretly seeing Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), a handsome young Muslim, and is reluctant to share the news with her strict Hindu parents or her roommate.
Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), the food service worker, is about to be evicted from her flat because she can’t pay the rent nor does she have any papers to prove she’s ever lived there. Trouble in River City!
Fortunately, the movie takes a break from hectic Mumbai: Parvaty decides to move back to her peaceful ocean village, and asks the other two women to help with the move. Anu has a motive for agreeing to do so: she wants to have a secret assignation with Shiaz, far from the snooping eyes of her workmates.
Admittedly, the issues facing each of these women could have happened in any large city. But in Mumbai, which has twice the population of NYC, and which we have learned often observes an arranged marriage protocol, the alienation seems particularly acute. Will running away from the big bad city really solve their problems?
“Imagine” just won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best International Film. My take? The gorgeous score by Dhritiman Das and Topshe, and luscious cinematography by Ranabur Das almost compensate for the slow—somewhat glacial—pace of this movie. It’s an honest portrayal of modern India, far from what we Instagram-hungry tourists get to see. In Hindi with English subtitles. At Film Forum.