Mumbai, the City of Dreams, is the New York of India, attracting migrants who leave their villages looking for opportunities. “All We Imagine as Light” (2024) focuses on three women migrants, who work at KJ Ratan Multi Specialty Hospital: Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha), nurses and roommates, and Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), a cook. Each woman is at different stages in her life, and one is contemplating returning to her home village, Ratnagiri, a coastal city on the Arabian Sea. Where will their dreams come true? Documentarian Payal Kapadia makes her narrative feature debut, and it is (so far) the best movie of 2024.
Anu is the youngest of the three and most adventurous. She has a secret relationship with Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), a Muslim. By ducking her mother’s calls, Anu is fending off her family’s attempts at marrying her off to a more suitable suitor. Marrying outside of their religion may be legally permitted under the Special Marriage Act of 1954, but no religious ceremony could occur without one of the pair converting. Culturally, it may seem like a divorce from family, community, culture and tradition instead of a union between two people and their families. Without knowledge of the law, others could obstruct the union and lead to persecution. Either way, Anu does not want to get married. In another environment, she would be considered a normal young woman in her twenties who wants to try new things and hang out with her boyfriend, but her activities fuel gossip. She is childlike in the way that she approaches work. When a young mother toting her baby comes in for advice on reproductive health, Anu casually lobs a solution at her before returning to being bored, texting and turning in her office chair.
Prabha is a woman with vast medical experience, behaves more like a rule follower and has trust in institutions, but her life is severely restricted becauseof the choices that her family made for her, which she did not question. Her husband works in Germany, and a red rice cooker comes in the mail, which is her first contact with him in quite awhile. It stirs up turbulent emotions in her, which leads her to an internal turning point: will she maintain the status quo or be a good friend when she discovers Anu’s affair? As a nurse, she is more accustomed to helping others.
Prabha is closer friends with Parvaty, the hospital cook, and tries to get her legal help to prevent the cook’s eviction. Parvaty, a widow, has lived in Mumbai for twenty-two years and is part of the city’s forgotten heritage, one of the people who helped build it up to the teeming metropolis it is today. Gentrifiers count on the workers’ labor and ignorance and benefit from rules that require them to prove their existence, and Parvaty does not have the paperwork. You can take colonizers out of India, but the heritage of colonization is alive and well as the city developers borrow a page out of the British handbook and the way that the United Kingdom treated its Caribbean citizens who migrated, known as the deportation of the Windrush generation even though the UK Home Office did not keep records of those granted permission to stay and in 2010 destroyed landing cards thus destroying proof that they were there legally. Though Parvaty’s futile legal journey and brush with activism are salient notes in “All We Imagine as Light,” Parvaty’s story prioritizes internal change.
Women of a certain age stop giving a fuck, and Parvaty starts to loosen up. Though not explicitly stated, Kapadia gives a nighttime glimpse of Parvaty’s cramped home that sounds as if it is in the middle of traffic. The implicit question becomes what is she fighting for? While Mumbai is a thrilling place with the potential for connection and an expansion of possibilities, without the practical tools to fulfill that potential, it becomes a scam or a delusion. Parvaty’s inner revolution opens the door for Prabha to interrogate her way of life thus potentially protect and validate Anu from becoming an outcast.
While “All We Imagine as Light” may be a women centric film, the men are also treated with sensitivity and as three-dimensional people, not villains, which is a particularly important countercultural image. Because of high profile, graphic, homicidal rapes that are occurring in India, the Western media is depicting Indian men as rapists as if one country has a monopoly on rape or sexual violence against women—ye without sin cast the first stone. It is possible to show outrage against crimes and criminals without bias. Though it is not necessarily an overt part of her agenda to counter Western images based in fear, an Indian woman filmmaker with a cinema verité style would be the perfect antidote as opposed to Bollywood’s bombastic, glamorized, stylized images of masculinity. Her characters are gentle, ordinary men, and sex is not depicted as dangerous, but a continuum of the intimacy shared through side-by-side existence, Edenic, nurturing and public though not exhibitionist. There is a dearth of private places, so the world becomes the rendezvous: public transportation, the lush wild outdoors, caves as ancient art museums. Everything is romantic in the most non-commercial, organic way possible. Dr. Manoj (Azees Nedumangad), who is interested in Prabha despite knowing her marital status, maintains a decorous distance and is all about respecting her boundaries though they both share more of a bond than her elusive husband. Kapadia plays with the concept that Pradha’s husband is such a stranger that a patient can be mistaken for him then teases out that concept to a longing cataclysm about loneliness abolished through the metaphor of care and touch. It is such a gorgeous concept that does not feel prurient or titillating. There is an organic innocence in sexual intercourse.
Along those lines, “All We Imagine as Light” could be considered controversial for scenes of quotidian nudity. It is a staple of independent cinema to show a woman peeing or defecating, but such practical necessities may be considered obscene even if the judiciary does not make such a finding under Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code. The most real scene in the film is when Anu comes home and immediately takes off her bra, but then her bare breasts are visible. Though it is not a sexual act, it could be seen as taboo, and these actors are brave to take such risks. Anu and Shiaz kiss frequently, which is often considered an offense though the Supreme Court of India has not upheld these assumptions. When heterosexual sex is depicted tastefully on screen, the man shows more skin and dominates the frame. While there are no full-frontal shots, the mainstream usually shuns male nudity shunned while women are usually shown naked, but not naked and unashamed.
The denouement unfolds in Ratnagiri, which is an unofficial vibrant character in “All We Imagine as Light.” When Prabha cooks fish for Anu, it becomes a thematic link to the coastal town. Like a Pedro Almodovar journey, returning to the village becomes a restorative, rejuvenating act. While in Mumbai, the idea of leaving feels like exile, but the reality is not as regressive and oppressive as it is feared and offers a freedom unavailable in city life. Mumbai is a place of dreams, but to make those dreams come true, go to the birthplace of Indian independence, the life-giving shores, return to a type of Garden of Eden. The final shot of a dot of civilization and open community under the stars rivals “Anora” (2024) as the best, cathartic finale. If only the whole world could be like that shot. It is a practical and accessible image of utopia.
