14/18

In Mumbai, nurse Prabha’s routine is thrown into disarray when she receives an unexpected gift from her ex-husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a place in the city where she can be intimate with her boyfriend. Director Payal Kapadia and the cast of All We Imagine As Light come together to share their most moving reactions from Cannes and more! The first Indian film to win the prestigious Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, this film dramatizes the many challenges faced by single women living in Mumbai and highlights their resilience. All the women here are nurses at the same hospital, but the similarity ends there, as each has her own unique set of problems and, one might say, solutions. Desire, fear, regret and dull patience are emotions that alternate continuously as the story quietly unfolds. Probably the greatest asset is the script, which offers extraordinarily rich and thoughtful dialogues between the characters. The amount of action in the plot feels like it provides a framework for conversations where people have room to be exceptionally honest and vulnerable with each other, even when they’re lying or acting. 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 cinematography and editing are also very good at creating a reflective, somewhat detached atmosphere that complements the quiet intensity of the characters’ interactions. The detachment is heightened at several points where the film seems to incorporate documentary elements, or certainly feels like it. I wasn’t always crazy about the music and the way it was invoked, but that’s a minor complaint that many might not share. I dispute another reviewer’s claim that this film was intended as “awards bait”; in my opinion, there’s too much heart and sincerity in this film to be classified as cynical or manipulative—certainly no more so than any other film that seeks to tell an important story in a compelling and beautiful way. And this film takes a lot of risks that I can’t imagine will go down well in an increasingly sectarian and puritanical India. I highly recommend “All We Imagine as Light”

From Zero Multi 10bit