All We Imagine as Light: Hope in Urban Loneliness
All We Imagine as Light is a haunting, poetic portrayal of three women bound by the thread of isolation, yet finding brief moments of connection and joy as they navigate an unforgiving world. Payal Kapadia’s film, a Grand Prix winner at the Cannes Film Festival, takes us through the crowded streets of Mumbai, where Prabha (Kani Kusruti), a nurse with quiet strength and patience, embodies resilience against a backdrop of urban loneliness. Her life is one of waiting and hoping: for her husband who vanished after taking a factory job in Germany, for a moment of light in the dim reality around her, a glimmer of what she’s been longing for.
Prabha’s story is shared with two other women. There is Anu (Divya Prabha), Prabha’s flirty roommate, who dreams of love and freedom, defying societal taboos to be with a Muslim man from Vithura. Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) is a widow and Prabha’s friend who is forced to leave the city and return to her coastal village. Together, the three women form a tender, fragile circle of companionship, exchanging simple pleasures and hopes—a movie, a quiet night in a rented room, playing with a stray cat, a moment of laughter while eating chili fish curry.
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Compassion, kindness and hope
Kapadia captures Prabha’s kindness through her interactions with others: her patients, her friends, her co-workers, and even the husband who abandoned her. She treats each with compassion that reveals her inner strength and persistence despite a life that gives little back. Her face, expressive and waiting, suggests a woman who has lived in hope for 22 years, never letting that hope wither. When a doctor awkwardly shares a poem and sweets with her, she is aware of his intentions but does not give in. She looks out for Anu, even when she disagrees with her choices, finally realizing that she, too, deserves a chance to experience life’s small pleasures.
Her bond with Parvaty is equally touching. She takes her to a lawyer to save her small apartment but when that does not work, she helps Parvaty move back to her village. Prabha finds herself unexpectedly uplifted by the fresh air, sand, and openness. The coastal landscape awakens something in her, a freedom that contrasts sharply with Mumbai’s claustrophobic confines.
The film’s quiet moments reveal the resilience of these women against the weight of the city. Cinematographer Ranabir Das beautifully captures a dark, rain-soaked Mumbai where dim lights flicker in the mist, umbrellas bob, people stare vacantly out of train and bus windows and bodies blur in the relentless monsoon drizzle. Somehow even through the damp, gloomy anonymity of the city, they exist not as victims but as individuals who find solidarity in one another.
Kapadia lets them explore their fleeting, shared joys—eating Chinese food for the first time, dancing to music after a swig of rum, throwing a stone at a developer’s billboard—as acts of small rebellion against the forces that try to confine them.
Strength in Isolation
Toward the end, the film turns dreamlike as Prabha, lost in thought, imagines the man she’s always hoped would return. In a poignant, surreal moment, she rescues a man from the sea. Is it her husband, her companion at last? Or a stranger with memory loss, merely an image of what she longs to find? It’s an open-ended question, yet Kapadia leaves us with the impression of a woman whose journey, though marked by loss, finds its strength in kindness, patience, and a profound ability to hold on.
Ultimately, All We Imagine as Light is an ode to the quiet resilience and inherent goodness of women like Prabha. It is a story of those who wait and persist in the face of bleak emptiness, those who, despite everything, nurture a quiet hope. Kapadia’s expressive narrative offers a bittersweet reminder that even in isolation, there is strength to be found, and even when life doesn’t return the same warmth, their humanity endures.
All We Imagine as Light is now playing in theaters in the Bay area.