All We Imagine As Light

Director: Payal Kapadia
Screenplay: Payal Kapadia
Starring: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon
Country: France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy
Running Time: 115m
Year: 2024

The dust has settled on what appears to be a successful Academy Awards. And only a week or two after the BAFTAs. Without a whisper of dissent towards the nominated and winning films, we can finally ask important questions.

For example, where the heck was Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light?

It’s a rhetorical question; the film was at least lauded at Cannes in 2024. (The first Indian film to win the Grand Prix), but otherwise was a victim of a strange process. One whereby countries only submit certain films for consideration. India apparently has a form for failing to support some of their own movies. I call shenanigans on any process that not only fails to consider certain films, but effectively buries them.

Released in perfect timing for the awards season, actually the cacophony drowned out any potential discussion. No-one spoke of Kapadia’s film. It has arrived on Blu-Ray with a bit of shrug, missing out on the last push of marketing that The Brutalist or Anora are enjoying. Thank goodness for Sight and Sound highlighting All We Imagine As Light as their top film of 2024.

It’s an individually beautiful film. Set largely at night, it’s otherworldly. Vibrant and dreamy, gritty and real, all at the same time. The film features two broad stories; one of a city and another focusing on three nurses within. The tone immediately recalled Bicycle Thieves. It shares that film’s delicate balance of social realism and the dreams of those caught within a system not of their choosing.

You can feel a European influence, possibly from the multiple production arms. It remains a resolutely Indian film. This is what might have put the Indian film board’s noses out of joint, which is a shame. A truly international film should have been a shoo-in for any celebration of how film can bring people together.

All We Imagine As Light begins within the hustle and bustle of Mumbai. Voice-overs of real people offer clarity as Kapaldi’s camera roves through real streets and people. Not unlike Terence Davies’ seminal Liverpool-set Of Time and the City. A neat segue reveals the impassive figure of Prabha (Kani Kusruti). From here on in, it is her story and that of her flatmate Anu (Divya Prabha). The film maintains the energy of that freewheeling cacophony. It’s a busy film but measured, hypotonic and frothy.

Kusruti is fabulous as the restrained, slightly haunted Prabha. She is trying to maintain a dignified routine with an absent husband (working in Europe, the impression is that he has managed to leave Mumbai and won’t be returning). She is trying to help a colleague (Chhaya Kadam) deal with injustice at the hands of greedy landowners, setting her and Anu on a journey. For her part, Divya Prabha is equally good and has a little more freedom in character and performance. Much of the film’s personality comes from her hint of rebellion.

Mumbai feels real. A mix of colour and noise, squalor and pride and a sense of chaotic, but normal, working-class lives being lived, with no-one really understanding how they got there. Or where they might end up.

The conclusion for Prabha is bittersweet and poetic, but importantly for a narrative film embedded in pure realism, it strongly feels like a circle has been completed. That she is embarking on a new stage. There can be a tendency in some neorealism for conclusions to drift, but I loved that there was a sense of an ending to Kapaldi’s beautiful film.

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Ranabir Das’ photography is intoxicating. Hand-held and personal, with a gorgeous, very cinematic grain. Like the story, the image is steeped in realism. A telling point of good mise en scene, there is always movement in the image. The 1080p transfer is fabulous and accentuates the look of a film that has a beating pulse running through it, without a hint of contrivance.

EXTRA FEATURES

This is an excellent package presented by the BFI. The introduction by Payal is well-placed and modest, with more time spent with her in the interview. And there’s two of her short films as well.

• Introduction by Payal Kapadia (2024, 1 min)
• An Alternative Family (2024, 22 mins): director Payal Kapadia discusses her education, film and the role of women in Indian cinema
• Trying to Survive (2024, 21 mins): actress Kani Kusruti discusses her upbringing, career, and collaboration on All We Imagine as Light
• Afternoon Clouds (2017, 13 mins): 70-year old widow Kati and her Nepali maid Mati cook together while beholding a flower which only blooms for two days
• And What is the Summer Saying? (2018, 23 mins): a poetic and dreamlike story set in a forest village where women whisper the secrets of their lost loves
• Theatrical trailer (2024, 2 mins)
• **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Illustrated booklet featuring a new essay on the film by Elhum Shakerifar, writing by Isabel Stevens, new writing on the short films by Rachel Pronger, an original review by Arjun Sajip and film credits