‘All We Imagine As Light’ review: A poetic exploration of love and dreams

Poet Nissim Ezekiel deemed Mumbai as “unsuitable for song as well as sense”. In Payal Kapadia’s terrific All We Imagine As Light, the barely functional megapolis makes even dreaming a challenge.

Kapadia’s debut feature is a poetic exploration of a decidedly unromantic city. In Mumbai’s warrens, on its congested streets, and between its higgledy-piggledy structures, hard-working migrants move from one day to the next, surviving if not quite thriving, looking for love, meaning and grace.

Malayali nurses Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) work at the same hospital and rent a house together. Prabha – cautious, pensive and somewhat defeated – watches over the younger and less inhibited Anu as would a protective sibling. Prabha’s empathy for the Maharashtrian hospital attendant Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) doesn’t always extend to Anu, especially after Prabha learns that Anu is seeing Shaiz (Hridhu Haroon).

The predominantly Malayalam-language production is among the titles competing for the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or. All We Imagine As Light is the first Indian movie to be selected for the section in 30 years, and the first by an Indian female director.

Kapadia’s previous short films and the docufiction A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021) had elliptical elements. In her latest project, Kapadia opts for a linear, docudrama...

Read more