All We Imagine As Light – A Melancholic Symphony Of Sisterhood

Walking up to a chilly winter morning with gentle rays of sunlight entering my room as I stretch myself on my bed and start my day in a slow relaxed mood is my definition of a perfect Sunday. Away from the daily ritual of hustle–and bustle where I gulp down an entire cup of tea in one go, I would prefer savouring a hot brewing large mug of frothy south Indian coffee and a nutritious breakfast. 

And I love dreaming of such days but they come also true when one dares to venture into the hubbub on a weekend to watch a film like All We Imagine as Light with a large bowl of popcorn and that frothy coffee. A film released in 2024 written and directed by Payal Kapadia an Indian filmmaker; this movie left me awestruck that Sunday afternoon when I gave up the novelty of my afternoon siesta and went alone to watch the movie. The movie had an “A” certification and I couldn’t take my teen to watch it along with me.

The feature film is been shot in Malayalam, Hindi and Marathi languages. It premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and went on to win the Grand Prix. Topping up Sight & Sound poll for best motion picture of 2024 it also triumphed in among the top five international films of the present year by the National Board of Review.

A Symphony Of Sisterhood

A tale of three women, this film talks about the sisterhood that unites us all. It speaks of compassion, empathy and kindness. The film revolves around the life of two Malayali nurses – Prabha played by Kani Kusruti, Anu, played by Divya Prabha who had migrated to the busy Mumbai town for a better life. They work in a small-scale hospital where Prabha a lonely nurse abandoned by her husband immediately after marriage to work in Germany sends her a rice cooker which leaves her baffled with a thousand questions swarming her mind one being “Is this the parting gift?”

Anu the newly recruited vibrant nurse coming from a staunch Hindu family and having a clandestine affair with a Muslim man Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon) aches for a private space to get intimate with her partner. While Prabha and Anu share the same apartment with Prabha, we have Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) as a close confidante to both of them. Parvaty a widow working as a cook in the same hospital is being tormented by the Mumbai builders to evacuate her room as the promoters plan to build a high rise.

In the first half of the movie, Payal brings in the bustling Mumbai where we peek through the lives of everyday office goers including me. The regular commute in the local trains, the weary eyes of her paragon, the shanties, the incessant rains, and the worn-out tarpaulin remind you of a city which you would love to hate but cannot stay without. The city has its own charm and Payal with her precocious tact has managed to bring forth the exuberance in front of her audiences.

The scenes are shot in blue including the colour of the uniforms of the nurses and if one can recall the days of silent movies this was once their used technique to convey the clutter in one’s mind. The colour is hard to see much like a human mind wired with several thoughts and emotions which one cannot avoid even after shaking off the sadness that an individual carries every day. One may be affluent but can anyone deny the fact that in each of us, we carry an untold story of heartaches which we normally call blues and Payal had used her brilliance in filming the first half in blue shade only. Humanity is revealed in the acts of Prabha who tries her level best to help Parvaty retain her space, which carries no legal papers to prove that you are a bona fide owner of that room that Parvaty had called her home past so many years. Likewise we find Anu handing over some expensive birth control pills from the hospital’s cabinet to a 24-year-old mother of three children.

Sex being an integral part of every human being, the epigram being portrayed in the way Prabha cuddles the rice cooker with her bare legs much like a woman who had surrendered herself to a man whom she loves. The scenes are very subtle not blunt and there lies the mastery of the director to convey these unspoken words to the audiences. Prabha rejects the advances of her doctor colleague Manoj as she dreams her man will come back someday and take her away. The crux of the film can be witnessed when we see a distraught Prabha reading Manoj’s poem with that cooker between her barren legs. Such is the direction and I couldn’t restrain myself from applauding Payal for showcasing it.

It’s when Parvaty tired of the regular harassment from the promoters decides to quit her job and return to her ancestral home in the coastal Maharashtra. Prabha and Anu decides to join Parvaty to help ferry her meagre belongings. 

The second half of the movie is much of exuberance where we can see the three woman dancing to the tunes of “Daiya yeh mein kahan phasi, hey re phasi, kaise phasi” in the shanty of Parvaty which she will call her home from now onwards. With no electricity in the shanty the preciseness of wiping off that sweat bead from the forehead reminded me of myself cooking in a hot kitchen uffing affing with each movement of my hot frying pan. That is art. And there is beauty in this art which many wouldn’t understand. Parvathy and Prabha enjoys the sea while Anu gets a chance of lovemaking with her boyfriend. The banality is revealed when we witness Prabha in the forest relieving herself with her pajamas down only to discover Anu and Shiaz’s passionate kissing next to the land where she had just urinated.

Payal also brings in fantasy when Prabha saves a man from dying with her professional expertise in CPR and she confuses that atypical man as her husband and imagines him promising her not to leave her again. The three women unaware of their future sit and enjoy the sea and the film ends with Shiaz joining them in a makeshift hut jubilant with lights. It’s ultimately the light we see at the end of a dark tunnel and Payal had only conveyed this fact to her audiences.

Views expressed by the author are their own.