All We Imagine as Light

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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From Payal Kapadia (“A Night of Knowing Nothing”) comes a quiet authentic drama, “All We Imagine as Light.” This film is a meditative analysis of true emotion. Its slow pace may not be for all, yet it is a progressive chunk of actual life and living rather than a film of high drama and pathos. The acting is excellent.

The film tells a dual story of two Malayali nurses Anu (Divya Prabha) and Prabha (Kani Kusruti). Prabha is grieving over a deserting husband while Anu is in love with a lover Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon) who is taboo on religious grounds.

Anu is romantic and vivacious while Prabha is reserved and serious, tempered by misfortune. In gradual steps, by sharing stories and activities, the two women forge a bond. Each of them is boxed in by society and masculine force and both of them pine for autonomy, liberty of domestic motion and a freedom of expression, divorced from convention or cultural norms.

One day when Prabha rescues a drowning man with CPR, she convinces the man that he is her abandoning husband. With mystery, intrigue and melancholy, this film underscores the mercurial nature of life and small domestic incidents that are subject to human manipulation.

Divya Prabha and Kani Kusruti are faultless without a shred of artifice or insincerity. The two actors are indistinguishable from their characters. Regarding Anu and Shiaz, the lovers embody an organic version of Shakespeare, illustrating pining hearts shipwrecked in a cave of lovelorn missives.

With elements of Ingmar Bergman, the film highlights both the contented joy of friendship and love as well as the very real and palpable fears of missing out and being judged by one’s condition and happenstance.

In slow progression with heart and pensive rhythm, “All We Imagine as Light” is one of the most delicate and fully rendered films so far this year.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com