All We Imagine As Light (15)

Mumbai is more than a city. It’s an ever-expanding universe. Night shots of the thronged streets in this exquisite drama.

Having captured the teeming collision of lives, Kapadia gently guides us to follow three nurses. Nurse Prabhais a veteran at the busy urban hospital where all three work; her younger colleague Anu (newly arrived from the south of India, is caught up in the first thrill of romance with her Muslim boyfriend. And Pavartya cook in the hospital kitchen, is facing eviction from a
home that is due to be demolished to sate the voracious appetite of gentrification.

These are ordinary lives, with small sadnesses, twinging regrets and sparks of joy. In the second half of the film, when the women leave Mumbai to accompany Pavarty back to her coastal village, the skies lift, the air clears and the picture takes on a lyrical, dreamlike quality.

Primarily Malayalam and Hindi with English subtitles. 2h3m Director Payal Kapadia. Cannes Grand Prix 2024.