“All We Imagine as Light” follows three women in Mumbai

Indian writer-director Payal Kapadia gives her film "All We Imagine as Light" a wistful title for very little literal or metaphoric light graces scenes until the last chapter. Set during the monsoon season in Mumbai, events follow a trio of women through claustrophobic apartments, hospital rooms, a food preparation center, and densely packed streets.

The three women, capably and calmly, work in the medical care industry and face personal problems. Nurse Prabha has not seen her arranged marriage husband who resides in Germany for two years, a man unreachable even by cell phone who sends a lovely red rice cooker without any note. Similarly, Prabha’s widowed friend Parvaty, a cook at the hospital, lacks the papers necessary to keep the couple's apartment after her husband's death. Because her spouse never added her name to the official documents, Parvaty is being forced from her low-rent apartment, where she's lived for twenty-two years, by exploitive builders.

By contrast, Prabha's roommate, younger nurse Anu, who lacks her share of the rent, hides her romantic involvement with Muslim Shiaz. In a culture where caste and religion matter, her family wants an arranged marriage, and, to them, a Muslim is not an acceptable candidate. Through serious economic and personal difficulties, it is the women’s friendship that buoys their lives and sustains them.

At this year's Telluride Film Festival where I first saw the film, Kapadia spoke of the diversity of languages and people since many Indians come to work in Mumbai. She also described the torrential rains, the gray gloom and heat that sets in during Monsoon amidst shared, societal challenges. Expressing what appears to be widespread dismay, Kapadia commingles Marathi, Bengali, and Tamil. In voiceover, an unidentified woman remarks, "Some call Mumbai the city of dreams." Another narrator corrects that, saying, "I think it's the city of illusion." A voice in Tamil adds, "You have to believe the illusion, or else you'll go mad."

Cinematographer Ranabir Das palpably captures this teeming, vibrant life beginning with a long tracking shot and later revisiting flower and fruit stalls, shops, cafes, scooters, buses, trucks, and people. Seldom has a film so powerfully depicted the locale, including glimpses of the Ganapati festival and retreat to the dissimilar Ratnagiri beach community. "All We Imagine as Light" tells three women's interconnected stories, each specific, deeply moving, and universally relevant. Winner of last year's Cannes Film Festival Grant Jury Prize, "All We Imagine as Light" is in Marathi, Malayalam and Hindi with English subtitles and is available now.