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A magical and illusionary place

In a nuanced manner the movie brings out the differences of language, class, and religion
11:31 PM Jan 22, 2025 IST | Dr Mantasha Binti Rashid
a magical and illusionary place
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Finally I watched “All we imagine as light”, owing to my knee ache that made me take a day off from work, stay home alone, & explore OTT platforms to find this masterpiece that I was longing to watch since it has shone at Cannes film Festival. The regular TV isn’t as simple and familiar anymore that one can derive comfort in the only movie or TV serial being aired. This age comes with choices and to make the right choice is liberating but comes with some hard work too.

Earlier this year, I had made another correct choice as I watched a similar sounding and even more profound Hollywood movie called, “All the light that we cannot see”. I can’t help but think of a similarity in the titles, however, the plot didn’t have any similarity as such. Anyway, I finally found the much talked about film directed by Director Payal Kapadia on Disney Hotstar. It is no surprise that the world is congratulating her but she fears how it will be taken at home, as she revealed in an interview.

She had protested as a student in FTII Mumbai against making a non-relevant politically supported man as principal of the famed institute and she was booked under law for the same. The movie looks like a vindication to rebellious hearts. But the movie itself is more of a silent rebellion. So silent and calm that it may lose you as audience if you are not invested enough! It may symbolically gesture that all revolts are not loud, all silences are not defeats, and wins are not obvious.

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Visually the movie is a slow, quiet, documentary style; thought provoking portrayal of Mumbai which a voice of a random person living in Mumbai for decades yet hesitating to call it home, at the opening of the movie calls, “Maya nagri”, a magical and illusionary place.

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A big metropolitan city runs on the back of migrant population from across the country to who the city is a loving dwelling place yet not a home. In a nuanced manner the movie brings out the differences of language, class, and religion, in a big diverse city, which an average commercial movie watcher may not fathom, immediately. The stunning part for me is that it explores and portrays Mumbai through the internal struggles of three women, Malyali nurses working at a hospital.

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Their hopes, desires, dreams ebb and flow in the movie without any loud emotions, overly dramatic scenes or even bewitching music or elaborate story telling. Most part of the film is quiet, and has used original noises from trains, markets, festivals, including natural sounds of winds, rains, and the feel of humid weather. There’s piano music adapted from some band which is mentioned in the initial credits. The lighting in the movie is mostly dull, gloomy, and blue in color, reflecting the routine of a busy city life which changes to golden hues on screen when the three women go to village towards the end.

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Movie may appear monotonous to some as it deals with everyday life that has its own pace, which, at times is, bracketed by the long empty stares of Prabha (Kani Kasruti) who’s missing her estranged husband who soon, after their arrange marriage left to work in Germany, and hyphenated by the passions of Anu (Divya Prabha) with her Muslim boyfriend Shiaz. And, then there’s the older of the three colleagues, Parvati (Chaya Kadam who plays a stunning role of a cynical and bitter woman in Lapata Ladies), who is being thrown out by the builder from her tiny house that harbors emotions & memories from her late husband and married son, who’s too busy to think of her mother now. Parvati emphasizes that her existence doesn’t matter as she has no papers of her own house after her husband and if builders kill or disappear her it will not be even noticed, to which Prabha emphasizes that Parvati, who is a cook at the hospital mess, will be missed by the nurses and other colleagues.

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Parvati also tells Prabha, while both are rummaging through things, hunting for some sort of house papers that can help Parvati claim her home, that some people like both of them are destined to be alone. There’s another beautiful reference to loneliness despite having family and living in a busy city. When Anu asks Prabha casually, both lying in bed in their tiny apartment after dinner, that how could she marry a stranger and soon dozes off to sleep. Prabha lays awake, and responds that even a familiar person can turn into a stranger which has deep psychological and philosophical underpinnings.

The movie is hinged on exploration of the physical desire of lonely women in a big and bustling city through Prabha and Anu’s story, for which the busy city life makes no space: physical and emotional. Prabha’s last phone call from husband was a year ago and yet she is passionately seen hugging a German rice cooker which seems to be sent by her husband working in a factory in Germany. And then Anu, who appears to be confidently and defiantly living her passionate moments with her Muslim boyfriend despite moral judgement from her fellows at the hospital is also grappling about the possibility of a lasting future with him.

The movie also critiques the disparity of class and the sole institutional reliance of existence of an ordinary person’s life on “papers” in today’s modern society through Parvati’s giving up on her home of which no papers are found. It may also be a hint at several laws enacted in the past few years to return people from neighboring countries solely based on documents that they must possess.

Prabha, as audience sees, is estranged yet kind towards others, particularly Parvati. Anu is drunk on her passions yet thoughtful of Prabha’s and Parvati’s expectations and even judgements, and Parvati has given up her struggle to retain her home and is moving to her village after decades in Mumbai yet she’s celebrating her migration back to village with a local drink stressing on her liberation even in her defeat. In Parvati’ s moving back to village and Parabha’s and Anu’s gesture to help her pack and move back to the village, Anu’s affair is revealed to them, which is slowly accepted by Prabha and Parvati.

In the end, Prabha asks Anu’s boyfriend, Muslim boy, which village he’s from and to that she further responds that ‘it is beautiful there as it is beautiful here, and she has been to both.’ To me, it seemed to connote that Prabha has made peace with the fact that her shared moments of passionate love with her husband were beautiful and it is beautiful now too after she has reached a closure. This is what the Director Payal Kapadia seems to decode as Light: embracing of polar opposites as the moments of hope and light.

As it isn’t always that the opposite of light is dark; it can very well be a different kind of light. In Prabha’s case, it is further emphasised by a stranger being found on the shores of sea in Parvati’s village. Parabha’s instinct as nurse helps rescue the man and the people around presume that it is Parabha’s husband. The presumption helps Prabha reach a closure when she imagines having a conversation with this stranger imagining him to be her husband and telling him that she won’t be with him anymore. The boundary between the light and darkness, reality and imagination, is blurred here in this scene and at few other instances in the movie.

What remains in the last shot is the acceptance of Anu and her defiant relationship with Muslim boy by Prabha and Parvati, Parabha’s emotional closure of her estranged marriage which she herself arrives at without seeking it from her husband. And, finally, Parvati’s finding peace in her small village: turning a cruel act of throwing out immigrants who build big cities by their blood and sweat which is a way to disenfranchise and disseminate their existence, into a state of pure bliss: living under open skies, clear waters, and closed communities who immediately upon seeing the stranger ashore declare that he’s not one among them unlike Mumbai : that adopts all yet knows them not!

Yet, they all, remember the city fondly but can’t call it home and the city sometimes empowers them in the most brutal and disempowering ways. The paradox here is the light. There’s light in kindness, friendship, and solidarity. I personally am a huge fan of female friendships which perhaps prompted me to pen down this synopsis of the movie or may be a review? I leave it up to the reader to find light where it is obvious and where it isn’t!

Dr Mantasha Binti Rashid is Deputy Director Rural Sanitation J&K.