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Payal Kapadia (India, 1986)
directed the documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021) before
her fiction debut
Prabhayaay Ninachathellam/ All We Imagine as Light (2024), photographed by
cinematographer Ranabir Das.
The film combines three women's lives, first in a metropolitan hell and then in idyllic nature.
The camera and two voiceovers introduce us to the crowded world of Mumbai.
The camera shows the human landscape first from a moving car and then from a moving train.
Prabha is a diligent and stern hospital nurse. The other nurses go out but she
refuses to join them.
Prabha is worried the cook Parvati who has been threatened by
the construction company
that wants her to move out of her illegal adobe.
Anu is another nurse. She is bored by her job.
She receives romantic messages on her phone.
The two girls are immigrants from Kerala whose native language is Malayalam.
Prabha works till late and outside is approached by doctor Manoj who is from the same state and has trouble speaking Hindi. An aspiring poet, he gives her a little poem which she reads it on the crowded train.
Anu and Prabha are housemates, and they have a pregnant cat.
Anu doesn't have money to pay for rent and it's not the first time.
Prabha is the mature and reliable one.
Prabha receives a mysterious parcel: an expensive rice cooker.
The package doesn't say who sent it.
Anu is delighted by the appliance, Prabha is pensive trying to figure out who
sent it. We learn that her husband lives in Germany.
The following day Anu is texting her lover.
Prabha learns from a colleague that Anu is in love with a Muslim boy.
All the nurses gossip about it.
We follow Anu as she leaves the hospital and takes a bus with her boyfriend Shiaz.
Alone at home, Prabha hugs the rice cooker, presumably assuming that it came
from her husband.
Later on a bus she chats with Parvati and we learn that her husband hasn't
called for one year. Prabha takes Parvati to see a lawyer. The lawyer can't help
Parvati because she has no papers that prove her right to live in the building
where she has lived for 22 years. Her husband died and left her no papers.
The construction company can start demolishing the building any day.
Prabha goes home with her and they two women look everywhere for documents.
Parvati has a son, but she cannot move in with the son because he lives with a wife and child in a small apartment.
Anu's parents are sending her pictures of prospective husbands. Shiaz is not Hindu.
We hear Prabha's thoughts: she hopes her husband will come back.
Prabha and Anu take their pregnant cat to doctor Majoj.
Anu is too friendly to Manoj and later Prabha scolds her for behaving "like a slut".
Shiaz suggests that Anu wear a burqa and comes to visit him when his aunt is not home.
When Anu returns home, Prabha apologizes for calling her a slut.
They chat about Prabha's husband. It was an arranged marriage. The man was in
India only for a few days for the wedding and returned to the factory in Germany. Anu is shocked that Prabha married a complete stranger. Prabha says that her husband used to call her frequently but then less and less so.
Parvati decides to move back to her village.
Anu buys a burqa and takes the train to Shiaz's place but Shiaz has to cancel the plan because his aunt is not leaving.
Prabha finally accepts the invitation to go to see a movie with the other nurses.
Prabha bids farewell to Parvati.
Manoj bakes cookies for Prabha: he has decided to leave but before leaving he
asks Prabha if he has any chance. She replies that she is married.
Prabha and Anu accompany Parvati to her village, which is the exact opposite of Mumbai.
Anu tells Prabha that her parents are pressuring her to get married.
Prabha is pessimistic that she can escape her fate.
Later Prabha sees Anu and Shiaz kissing: he followed them secretly.
Anu and Shiaz wander in the unspoiled natural environment until they find a cave where lifesize heads have been sculpted in the rock.
They have doubts about their relationship, which is certain to be opposed by both families. They have sex in the woods.
Meanwhile, a middle-aged man who is drowing is rescued by fishermen.
Prabha saves his life by performing CPR on him and then even cleans his body of the sand while he is unconscious.
They think she is his wife because she performed CPR which involves mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
The man wakes up but doesn't remember anything.
Prabha turns away from him and starts talking in her mind to her husband.
She imagine that this indeed is her husband, that he has a good excuse for
neglecting her due to his hard work in the factory, that he misses her,
and that he asks her to follow him. However, she rejects him.
Prabha, Anu and Parvati are sitting outside.
Prabha tells Anu to invite Shiaz.
Anu is surprised that Prabha even knows about Shiaz.
(Copyright © 2024 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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