In a 2017 interview, director Payal Kapadia said “There are not many sources one has to choke for as the life that exists around is very rich in poetry that comprises dreams and even memories.” This artistic philosophy was on display in her first feature, the documentary “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” and it is even more explicit in “All We Imagine as Light,” a narrative feature about three women in Mumbai who are trying to make it work somehow. The title of the film is quite evocative, and Kapadia,’s praises are many, but the title of the film herself contains the most vivid description We Imagine as Light. So, perhaps it is no longer light but suffice it our imagination to imagine it so, but that is how the darkness is left, how the deep night in which one cannot sleep is illuminated with colored lights and the illusion of the light has to be painted.
The actual education topic is ‘loneliness’’ and the dislocation from the emotional region and the geographical one, all people came from somewhere else: Mumbai is Mumbai is overpopulated and multi-linguistic. The multicultural/international city comes alive a little before the sun shows up as a senior character drives the plot a movement unveiling of offloaded goods, setting up of sidewalk markets, and starting up of the city and its inhabitants, originating in the setting of Mumbai. Constantly in motion are automobiles, people, and vice versa. The tonal voiceover where people narrate about Mumbai, and its understatement-the loneliness of the city in Edward Hopper’s manner, as the reason of making this movie. “Always, there’s this waiting feeling that am about to leave again”. “Work and the dollars are there in Mumbai.” Living in Mumbai one has to “cope with absence.” This almost ‘truthful’ documentary opening is rounded off by a slow close-up of Prabha (Kani Kusruti) still layered standing, ready to hop on the train to work. We had gone quite a while without seeing something that was altogether ‘still’, and she was it.
Prabha works as a nurse and is often invited to film nights or casual get-togethers by her female colleagues even though they are fully aware that she will decline. She was sent off to Germany a few days after her arranged marriage and nobody has heard a word from her since. They send weird packages to her P.O. box with the only proof of existence being a German return address. The only remaining piece of evidence that her entire family got lost in the 1970s is a rice cooker. Strangely enough, she manages to live a life where there is an emotional barrier overlapping her heart. To actually fully understand her, it is necessary to look deep within her.
Prabha’s husband is yet to be presented, while Anu (Divya Prabha) is a restless and young woman who frequently meets her Muslim boyfriend Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon) only at night. Prabha has been told that her mother has been discussed in some gossip circles which seems to be disconcerting. But Anu is strong-headed and in love, she wants everything at once, happiness, sex, and freedom. Anu brushes aside all of Prabha’s indignation, probably because she sees jealousy in her. Anu and Shiaz have fallen in love. In contrast to Shiraz, Prabha’s husband was a stranger the moment he placed a ring on her finger. The most interesting sensation may be absent in the life of Pablo.
Prabha’s acquaintance Parvaty struggles. She is being kicked out of her shanty after years of residency and works as a cook in a basement. The construction sites, bulldozers, cranes and crowds around the city are a lot to deal with, but the loss to ownership certainty hurt Parvaty. The two women display rebellious behavior towards the repositioning crane by throwing stones at it while giggling and take turns covering each other with patches. One of the patches reads: “Class Is a Privilege Reserved for the Privileged.” Taking differences into consideration, have you looked around at the world lately? There is Pushing employed.
Prabha’s relationship with Manoj is rather paternal. She takes an effort to teach him Hindi while he tries to impress her with poems he wrote to send for a competition. The pieces do not quite fit in. She is married to him in name only, having seemingly, abandoned him. In the end, Parvaty means to return to her village by the sea and it is this magical realism along with revelation that the final chapter of the film depicts beautifully. The trio reaches the scene while making us feel like Prabha, Anu, and Parvaty have been friends during ages.
We do not only pay attention to the loved ones of the main characters either; we care for Manoj and Shiaz as well.
It was cinematographer Ranabir Das (also the director of photography in ‘A Night of Knowing Nothing’) who brought to life the subtle detail of melting shadows and the nocturnal cobalt interspersed with muted orange from a distant view of tall buildings – the highrise buildings utterly replaced the stars. In one kind of scene same as the staff’s, the audience observes them watching a training video. The projector shines above their heads, and the light of the screen is slightly blocked by their faces. This serves as a powerful metaphor for the film itself – the narrative and the process of getting to know the characters.
Kapadia is able to direct into details, a trait crucial for such an ever-growing narrative. An excellent scene is when the nurses dash out onto the roof to grab the flapping sheets to shield the patients as a storm approaches. Prabha is perched on the window of her room during the night, reading a private text of Dr. Manoj’s headshot with a flashlight on her phone, while her room is filled with the sounds of an elevated train passing by to the far end of the window, complementing her sense of isolation (and yet close: reading a headshot of her friend is not that close.) The other side of the window is drenched in pouring rain and the gusts want to untie the curtains and sheets that Walker and Anu had used with each other. Anu’s mother is overbearing and so she receives headshots of unidentified men from her through dating sites. Anu and Shiraz are primal in this sense, exchanging whispers amongst themselves, gripping each other’s hands, and giggling uncontrollably through the seemingly endless queues lining the streets. Apparently, this relationship exists between them: an interfaith where they have to conceal themselves from their families. From time to time, words appear in films: ‘Learn to live with irremediability’ and continue to exist.
Parvati’s seaside village is a respite from the warm saltwater that irks construction and trains.
Anu and Prabha assist Parvaty in relocating. From the cerulean scenarios of beach walks a man must have struggled hard to stay alive (Anand Sami). At this moment, Prabha gives him a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation which, as to be expected, is hero-like. Later follows a rather strange sequence best left for discovery, with Prabha wandering into a different dimension on another plane. What it is that she “thinks”, may not be so, yet it serves as a succor as easily as if it were so.
Kapadia’s fascination with cinema comes to the fore in every single frame, Chantal Akerman’s “News from Home” All Akerman films feature a strong sense of dislocation or exile from New York City, as do the works of Apichatpong Weerasethakul where boundaries between life and death are blurred and night becomes a dream where voices the universe penetrate, The light melancholy of “All We Imagine as Light” is darkness of a different type. No, the great void is not devoid of light.
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