All We Imagine As Light is a 2-hour quasi-slice-of-life Indian film about three women in Mumbai who deal with different issues in their lives through their friendship. Its scope is small and the stakes are low, but Payal Kapadia in her debut film that garnered her a nomination for Best Director at the Golden Globes shows that contexts may change, but at the end of the day, we are all driven by the yearning for that we cannot yet have. 

Point 1: The Context

The story of All We Imagine As Light (shortened to AWIAL henceforth) is set at a local hospital in Mumbai where they have just about the required staff and equipment to get by, but that’s about it. Two of the main characters of the film are Malayali nurses who cohabitate with Prabha being a senior nurse and Anu being junior. Prabha is an uptight straight arrow who follows the rules to a T and does the housework after her shift while Anu is an outgoing young woman who is hiding a secret relationship with a Muslim man named Shiaz. Meanwhile, the third protagonist, Parvaty, is a cook at the hospital who lives in a chawl that initially belonged to her deceased husband, but now is struggling against a developer who is threatening to kick her out since she has no papers to prove her ownership despite living there for 30 years.

Using inserts throughout the film, Kapadia explains to the audience how Mumbai itself is a character. For those who may not know, Mumbai is both the financial and film capital of India. A mishmash of New York City and Los Angeles with a greater population than both those cities combined. Often, in Indian cinema, Mumbai is shown as either a city of dreams for young starlets much like Los Angeles is in the US or a way to glamourize organized crime in the way that New York has been in various mob films. The director however takes a more sobering look at the city – she puts aside the glitz and the glamour of Bollywood and the drugs and money of the crime. Instead, she focuses on all the people that are just trying to get by and being chewed up and spit out by the city. In one insert, you hear someone say “Mumbai isn’t the city of dreams, it’s the city of illusions.” These accounts of the setting of the film really allow you to put yourself in the shoes of the characters who are seen to be in very modest environments, living lives that could not be further from anyone’s dream. And yet, by the same token, they are getting by, which cannot be said for everyone.

I lay this all out to bring a spotlight on one of my favourite parts of film: learning. And I don’t necessarily mean that in the form of documentaries, although they are a great way to achieve this as well. We don’t all have the means to travel and personally learn about everything happening in the world. It is unrealistic to expect anyone to have a great grasp of the various difficulties and issues that plague the vast cultures and regions on Earth. However, to me, film is that means to get a personal and visceral insight into the small nooks and crannies of life elsewhere that we would otherwise never think about. This is of course not something unique to AWIAL, but it is yet another reminder that in this ever-fractured worldview that is developing, we need films like these to remind us that despite all our innumerable differences, our empathy can help us find all the ways that we are similar. 

Point 2: The Characters

The director’s decision to focus on three modest, everyday people as the focal point of the film is a key element that elevates this film. Given where it takes place and the general environment of making films in India, it would have been very easy to veer off and add more glamorous elements. But Kapadia restrains herself and focuses on issues that seem mundane on the surface but the effortless performances really drive home how for these characters, their problems overtake their lives. It is rare enough to find female-led movies in India (and let’s be honest, most of the world), but to find one that gives an unflinching view into the lives of just everyday women, two of whom are middle-aged, is like looking for a needle in a haystack. 

Although this is a very small film that has seen very limited release throughout the world, I hope that especially women who are in similar situations to those in the film get to see this movie. How often are their stories told outside of side plots with little to no care? I’d wager not very often. With general discourse about diversity, equity and inclusion being what it is, sometimes the extent of what that should be is lost. It is important to see different genders and different sexualities on screen, but an unfortunate blindspot ends up being age. Seeing the smaller scale story of a couple of middle-aged women is a breath of fresh air in a time when we are bombarded with world-ending massive CGI-fest films that make us sometimes forget the realities of those we share our world with.

Point 3: The Universality of Desire

Although there are many themes that can be seen throughout the movie, the one that spoke to me the most is about the universality of desire. All three of these women want different things, and for many Western audiences, the specific desires may be hard to relate to. But the experience of being in a situation where something is holding you back and weighing on you constantly and wanting something better or to be free from it is something anyone can relate to. 

Prabha is married to someone who she met briefly once but he moved to Germany thereafter and she has been in a perpetual state of paralysis from a social and relationship aspect due to it. She yearns for her relationship with her husband who she hasn’t heard from in a year, but more importantly she yearns for the independence to be her own person free from the shackles of this relationship that exists only in technicality. On one hand, this presents another difference to Western viewers in terms of the way arranged marriages work culturally, but you still understand the more universal aspect of someone unable to open themselves up to what’s around them because they feel bound by something that is barely there. As she yearns for her independence, so do you on her behalf.

Parvaty meanwhile is losing her home to gentrification and being evicted from her home that she’s lived in for decades due to administrative aspects out of her control. You see that although she is a strong, willful woman, she cannot bring herself to impose on her son and the immensity of a legal battle in which she could only wish to be a minnow is not a hill she can climb. It makes you think how her desire to have a roof over her head is such a luxury when to many of us, it is trivial. Or perhaps it hits us more today at a time when the economic conditions of our surroundings have led to record numbers of homelessness. Regardless, once again, the ubiquity of needing or wanting something remains. 

Anu perhaps portrays the most stereotypical of stories within the film – one of wanting to be with someone, but a relationship that won’t be accepted. Perhaps it’s the director’s way of intertwining a more relatable story to younger audiences in the country the movie is set in with the struggles of those who are perhaps older and in later stages of their lives than Anu. The generation divide in India is significant in terms of beliefs, values, and behaviour. However, Anu’s story allows those divides to be bridged through friendship and mutual emancipation from respective things holding back each of the characters.

I left AWIAL thinking about how we all want something that seems out of our reach. Whether we are very well off or not, whether our lives are generally going well or not, our human nature is to always see that thing we don’t have and yearn for it. It’s possible that some may see this movie and feel silly for wanting what may be trivial and silly in comparison to a roof over your head, but I think what the film really is preaching is that our desires will always differ from someone else’s but it doesn’t make it any more trivial to us personally. We want what we want and we all have that resolve in us to make it happen, even if it’s not in the way we intended, with the help of those around us.

Point 4: The Simplicity

I have alluded to this in a few different ways in the previous sections, but I think the beauty of the film in the end rests in its simplicity. I don’t only mean that in terms of the scope of the film, which I discussed earlier. I also mean it in the decisions of the filmmaker. The film has a graininess and colour grading to it that is reminiscent of photos you may have taken in the early 2000’s. The film has no exact time that it’s set in but characters have modern smartphones, which indicate that this takes place in modern times. But the way it’s shot could easily fool you into thinking this took place anytime in the past 30-40 years. The director’s choices to show you the flea markets Anu finds joy in with Shiaz or focusing on Prabha cooking and cleaning at home ground you into the very real but modest environments. 

Clearly, every choice is very meticulous yet they have found a way to make it feel like you are just catching people living their life. You can feel how good a breeze on the train feels on Prabha’s face after a long shift at the hospital or how much a rainy day changes the mood for people who have no choice but to brave the elements every day. None of these are focal points of the movie, but it is what makes you immerse into the feel and story. Simplicity in this sense is not a slight, but rather a compliment about the ways to ease an audience into a setting and context that may otherwise be foreign to them. Just spending some time on many other instances reminiscent of the aforementioned moments brings you into their world more than any exposition ever could. Yes, their lives are difficult in terms of how they live and work and travel, but they aren’t miserable for it – instead, they find their own pleasures and escape to live proudly.

I have loved AWIAL more every day since I saw it. I of course highly recommend you check it out, but I also think you should give it time to sink into you before you give your verdict on the film. It’s something that I think will stay with you and your appreciation will grow each time you think back to it – at least it did for me.