All We Imagine as Light

In All We Imagine as Light, we follow two protagonists, colleagues and roommates, who couldn't be more different from each other. Prabha is devotedly waiting for her husband, who is abroad and whom she hasn't heard from in a year. She is very serious, orderly, and rejects her colleague's romantic courtship, though it is clear that she also has some affection for him. Anu, on the other hand, is a cheerful free spirit who rejects arranged marriage, and tries to steal every spare moment to spend time with her lover, which is not exactly easy for them, as they don't have many places to go or ways to be alone. I think Prabha is envious of Anu's freedom and free-spirited nature, which is putting a bit of a damper on their relationship. And that's about all that happens in the film... I heard conflicting opinions from all sides at the festival. Some called the film the best this year, and others didn't understand what all the fuss was about, and I'm in the latter group. I don't want to say that the film is bad, because it is not, but it is terribly tedious, I felt that it dragged on for at least three hours. I didn't really like the female leads either, they didn't draw me into the plot that much, so I didn't feel like I was rooting for them, that I cared about them in any way. Honestly, I liked the Indian film Santosh better, which was also screened at Cannes this year, but in the Un Certain Regard category. [Festival de Cannes 2024] (05/25/2024)

An extraordinarily gentle, quiet and slow film with a pure melancholic soul. It starts out as a profile of overpopulated, rain-soaked Mumbai with a look into the lives of two friends living there and later shifts to a calmer, quieter place. As the debut fictional film of an experienced documentary filmmaker, All We Imagine as Light reminds us of the interest and thoughtfulness with which original, high-quality Indian dramas can tell us about the feelings of their characters. The socially inhospitable setting and the difficulty of living life in it adds depth to their impressiveness. To be happy here means living in an illusion. [Cannes FF] (05/26/2024)

This Indian social drama does not conceal its director’s documentarian roots and thus greatly benefits from realism and authenticity, whether that refers to the depiction of the individual settings, the acting or the stories of the three women – nurses – whose friendship and togetherness give them strength in dealing with their personal problems, which they are not able to resolve on their own due to the social norms of their country. One is burdened by loneliness and longing for her husband, who has been working abroad for a long time, the second woman’s life is complicated by the building authority, and the third is faced with the prejudice of the people around her because of her relationship with a young Muslim. However, the narrative has a very slow pace and the situation of the three protagonists does not develop much following the introductory exposition. The sudden change of location two-thirds of the way through the film is certainly refreshing. Conversely, the inclusion of one magical-realistic scene near the end of the film is detrimental. Otherwise, this purely festival-oriented and sensitively made spectacle is rather pleasant and modest. (07/05/2024)