Film: All we Imagine As Light

Towards the end of this moving Indian film, a character speaks about working days on end in a dark factory and the exhilaration of coming out into the light. Light then is symbolic of the realities of our lives but our hopes are that somehow or other we live through and imagine will be light.

Directed by Payal Kapadia, with beautiful performances from Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhi Haroon, Azees Nedumangad, and Anand Sami, All we Imagine As Light, won the Grand Prix at Cannes as well as many other awards and nominations. And it has production contributions from European countries.

The audience is immediately swept into the realities of the city of Mumbai, a very long opening tracking shot along a street in the city, observing the people, the shops, the conditions as the camera passes by, then a long tracking shot along a railway line, the crowds, the stations, the train rides - and some voice-over about people who have had hard experiences in the city.

Then, during a train ride, a very long take of a very striking woman traveller. She is Prabha, a middle-aged nurse, arranged marriage, husband long in Germany, little contact. She is good at her work, a doctor friendly with her, writing her a poem. She shares accommodation with Anu, much younger, bright and breezy, brash, secretly seeing a Muslim young man. The other women at the hospital is older, Parvati, widow of 20 years, squatting in a building now being taken over for development and her being sued.

The early part of the film offers an opportunity for the audience to see and appreciate each of the women.

The second part of the film has the three women going to Pavarti's home town, to help her settle back. There are two developments, a revelation about Anu and her relationship with the young man, his following her to the town, the rendezvous in an almost mystic cave. Prabha, observes, upset, wanting to return to Mumbai. The other development is a blend of the real and the surreal/mystical, a drowning man, caught in the net, rescued and revived by Prabha. However, in dialogue with the man, she imagines him as her husband, questioning him, trying to understand - and it is he who makes the quote about the darkness and light.

These events seem to offer the three women some possibilities for peace in their own lives, hope for the future.

The writer-director, Payal Kapadia, was born in Mumbai and brings a deeply empathetic talent to this story of the three women.

Watch the official UK trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf1jAx6VhZ8