All We Imagine As Light received all kinds of recognition at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. The winner of the Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, this Payal Kapadia film is all about women and stories of their lives. Payal Kapadia, through this film, peeks into the most mundane life of three women hustling in one of the most busiest cities in India, Mumbai.
Spoilers Ahead
Were Anu And Prabha Roommates?
The movie began with Prabha nursing an elderly patient. It was established that Prabha was one of the senior nurses in a hospital in Mumbai. Many in the nursing staff looked up to her, including Anu, one of the recent hires. Anu joined Prabha as a roommate as well, and they quickly bonded as friends. Anu, however, hesitated to share any kind of news that would cause Prabha distress. Prabha was married to someone, but she had not spoken to her husband in a long while. Her partner was in Germany, and he hadn’t bothered to keep in touch after their nuptials.
Who was Anu in love with?
Prabha learned from her colleague that Anu was in love with a Muslim guy. Prabha refused to believe it as she knew that Anu was a good girl. However, it turns out the colleague was right about Anu being in love with a Malayali Muslim guy named Shiaz. The film didn’t explain how Anu and Shiaz met, but both were slowly falling in love and spending as much time as they could after work with each other. Due to the lack of private space in Mumbai the couple only found certain public places to share intimate moments in. Anu was happy with Shiaz, and their relationship was only becoming better.
Why did Prabha want to help Parvathy?
Parvathy worked as a cook in the hospital and was good friends with Prabha. Parvathy was facing eviction charges from a private builder. The said builders were planning to construct a residential complex on the existing structure she lived in. Their only obstacle was Parvathy, who refused to move out, as the home was given to her husband as compensation from another builder many years ago. Parvathy was not in possession of the papers that would prove her ownership of the place she currently lived in, making her vulnerable as well. Parvathy initially was fierce and wanted to take up a fight. Sadly, her meeting with a renowned pro bono lawyer made her realize her fight was a lost cause. Prabha wanted to help Parvathy, but the former was powerless as well because the builders were highly influential.
Who did Prabha receive the gift from?
Prabha and Anu came back home to find someone had sent the former a rice cooker as a gift. There was no address given for the person who’d sent her the kitchen appliance. Anu deduced from the language on the appliance that it could have been sent by Prabha’s husband from Germany. Prabha reveals the circumstances under which she and her husband got married and why they eventually stopped communicating. Prabha and her husband were legally still bound together, but emotionally and physically both had been detached for a long time. Anu said she could never agree to an arranged marriage as she would want to know the person before deciding him to be her partner for life.
Did Dr. Manoj propose to Prabha?
Dr. Manoj was a physician with the hospital Prabha and Anu worked for. He and Prabha had begun to spend time with each other after work hours. Dr. Manoj revealed he was struggling with the Hindi language in Mumbai, so Prabha helped him pick up conversational words that could be used on a daily basis. Dr. Manoj shared a small book of poetry he had written with Prabha. Prabha was moved by his gesture of letting her read his poetry, and she began to develop feelings for him. Dr. Manoj soon announced he was leaving Mumbai because he could not catch up with life and the language. Besides, he had no reason to stay back. He hinted at Prabha if she was interested in him. Prabha was attracted to him, but she freaked out and backed away, stating she was a married woman. Prabha left midway during her conversation with Dr. Manoj, which meant it was the end of speculation around a potential relationship between the two.
Why did Prabha and Anu go to the Konkan coast?
The midpoint of the movie showcased that Parvathy had left her job and her place of residence in Mumbai to move back to her hometown on the Konkan Coast. She decided to take up the job of a cook in a local hostel in her hometown. Parvathy never wanted to be a burden to her children in Mumbai, which made her take this big step. Prabha and Anu helped her move and settle down in her small home. Anu was fascinated by the life Parvathy had led and wanted to find out more about the town as well. Anu and Prabha indulged in a bit of booze as they were far away from work and other personal commitments.
Did Anu lie to Prabha and Parvathy?
Anu had lied to Prabha about her budding relationship with Shiaz. Prabha witnessed the couple making out together and realized Shiaz had either followed Anu or both had made plans to meet each other far away from the crowd of Mumbai. Prabha was uncomfortable as she came to know of the relationship between Anu and Shiaz, and she was kept in the dark about it. Anu and Shiaz, however, spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the town together, including some secluded caves and the surrounding greenery. This was the first time Anu revealed her apprehension about her family pressuring her to get married to the person of their choice. This was the first time both had discussed such intimate subjects. Shiaz also revealed he feels helpless most of the time, but being with Anu gives him the strength to fight for their love and relationship. Anu and Shiaz, for the first time, make love which cemented their trust in each other. They made love in a secluded place in a forest, driven to do so by lack of private spaces for young lovers like them to explore physical acts of intimacy.
Who did Prabha rescue?
Prabha was disturbed at the thought of Anu lying to her about the current state of their relationship. Anu had briefly mentioned not wanting to succumb to the pressures of her family, to which Prabha had a very conservative response. Seeing Anu and Shiaz happily kissing each other made her want to seek physical forms of reassurance as well, which had been lacking in her life for the past several years. Prabha was a witness to a man being rescued by the local fishermen from the sea. As the crowd gathered around the unconscious man who had just been rescued, Prabha, being a trained nurse, resuscitated him using CPR. It was her first instinct to help people, especially in a medical emergency such as this. The man, after he regained consciousness, was moved to a small home by the beachside.
Prabha, being a nurse out of habit, was next to the rescued man in no time as he was taking rest. The owner of the house assumed the man to be Prabha’s husband, which she tried to correct but in vain. As the man woke up, he began to ask questions about his surroundings and the fact that he ended up in the sea. The man was clueless and had no memory of anything that had happened to him. Prabha figured the man had some memory of his life and chimed in just to comfort him and make him believe she was his wife.
Prabha felt sorry for him and listened with a lot of interest. Her job was not just to care for the patients but to hear their stories as well. Prabha was an empath and somewhere Prabha could hypothetically live the life of a wife while conversing with him. She had missed out on such intimate conversations with her husband, but through this stranger she was able to do that after many years. Hearing a stranger apologizing to her felt like her estranged husband communicating with her the way she wanted. The conversation between Prabha and the stranger was proof of the fact that there were many things left unsaid between her and her estranged husband, and both were unwilling to communicate. She found comfort in a person who she hardly knew and never from the person she was married to. There was nothing clear about how the man ended up being rescued. Either he might he attempted to commit suicide and lost his memory in that process or someone may have tried to kill him. This detail was not important as this sequence was added to make Prabha experience the feeling of being a spouse. Prabha, however, craved physical touch as a need but soon backed away at the first sign of affection. This could be her trauma response as she felt she never deserved physical affection.
Did Prabha accept Anu’s relationship?
During All We Imagine As Light’s ending, Prabha got her closure when she asked the stranger to not seek her ever again. She might be hoping to bring some change into her life from here on. This intimate experience with a stranger helped her come to terms with reality. She decided to give Shiaz a chance. Prabha wanted to meet Shiaz so that she could give her blessings to the couple which would pave the way for new things in the lives of the people she cared about. Parvathy found her calling in her hometown, and hoped to live there till her last breath. Prabha on the other hand was hoping to break away from the conservative bounds in her heart and support Anu as much as she could.
Anu mentioned wanting to get married to Shiaz, and Prabha was elated. Anu was excited to introduce Shiaz to the people that mattered to her. Prabha soon understood there was more to life than forcing people to live with the wrong person. Along with Parvathy, Prabha was happy to find Shiaz was a good person, which is what made Anu also courageous. All the women were forced to live a certain way because of their gender. Prabha was also of a conservative mindset, believing women were not supposed to cross an invisible boundary that would jeopardize their character. Parvathy was also being targeted because the establishment believed women could be silenced into submission. Instead of letting them win, she stepped away and chose her life over fighting a battle that would exhaust her.
Anu had her own concerns regarding marriage from her family, but her plans for her life were definite. It was her decision to not abandon Shiaz at his most vulnerable stage, and that made her a strong and resilient woman who had the power to question the system that challenged her life choices.
