The Illuminating Poetics of Payal Kapadia

In the dazzling city of lights, people remain isolated. The blinding artificial light of urban spaces seems to prevent the human eye from perceiving the heart within the person standing beside them. It’s reminiscent of Lalon’s song:
“In the mirror city by the house, the neighbour lives there,
Yet I never see them, even for a day.”

Each person is like a mirror. When one looks into another, they discover themselves. But the thousand-watt glare of urban lights, reflecting off the mirror of another person, obscures their vision; they can’t see either themselves or the other. In the cityscape, human insight appears to blur.

In contrast, far from the city—amid quieter, simpler places devoid of frenzy and excessive light—people seem to come closer together. In the absence of overwhelming lights, they can read one another more clearly. Under starlight, much like a meditator immersed in quiet reflection, they can discover themselves.

It is this very sentiment, at least in my view, that Payal Kapadia, the filmmaker, captures in her film All We Imagine as Light (2024). The film explores the mechanical and organic dichotomy, centred around human relationships—fragile in the city yet profound in rural settings. This stark contrast between city and village life evokes Rabindranath Tagore’s poem To Civilization:

"Give back the forest, take this city,
Take the iron, steel, wood, and stone,
O new civilisation, you ruthless devourer

...
We long for freedom, for open skies,
To regain our strength within,
To feel in our hearts, tearing the bonds,
The pulsations of this eternal universe.”

The film opens with scenes of Mumbai—a bustling metropolis, vibrant with lights. In the background, there is no single narrative voice. Instead, fragmented human expressions lash across like whips. Kapadia deliberately chooses this style to depict the city's character. She observes the city from afar, emphasising how the people who animate the city remain distant from it. The city never becomes their own. Crushed under the pressures of life and livelihood, they strive to adapt to its suffocating environment. Their feet sink into the daily muck; the city refuses to relent. Like a snake, the metro trains carry battered bodies to work and back, rendering life an exhausting loop where relationships and love struggle to breathe.

Prabha, a nurse, is married. After her wedding, her husband immediately left for another big city in Germany for job purposes. One city’s dreams seem to devour another’s. Despite being married, Prabha lives as if widowed. A doctor from the hospital expresses love for her, but he, too, eventually leaves Mumbai, seeking an escape from its suffocating air. Alone, Prabha clings to a red rice cooker sent by her husband from Germany. On stormy nights, she sobs, holding this appliance close. Does the steam gathering in the rice cooker reflect the vapour of tears collecting in her heart? Perhaps that’s why the rice cooker feels so intimate to her. The red colour, too, carries significance.

Prabha’s colleague, Anu, is unmarried and in a relationship that the city and its society disapprove of. Her lover, Shiyaz, belongs to a Muslim family, forcing their love into secrecy. One day, Anu wears a burqa to meet him. But that day was a stormy day; torrential rains paralysed the city—transport came to a halt, and the metro froze. Shiyaz informs her that their meeting is impossible. Suddenly, Anu and Shiyaz feel like strangers to each other, unsure of what to do. The city effortlessly estranges the familiar, just as it alienates Prabha’s husband from her.

This estrangement extends to the very homes people live in. Parvati, another hospital colleague, lives on the edge of the city. Her husband, a laid-off jute mill worker, had secured a small house there. However, due to missing documents, they lost even that. Parvati can no longer stay in the city. She decides to move to a coastal village, where they own a small plot of land—at least no one can evict them from there. Prabha and Anu join her, embarking on a new journey.

The latter half of the film shifts to this rural setting. Here, events unfold that were impossible in the city. Anu and Shiyaz reunite amidst the serenity of nature near the frothy waves of the sea. When Prabha encounters a stranger washed ashore by the waves, for a fleeting moment, she imagines it to be her husband, miraculously returned from Germany. For a moment, she feels her husband’s presence. Despite Shiyaz being a Muslim, he, Anu, Parvati, and Prabha sit together under the stars, bathed in their soft light.

Village life, stripped of its artificiality, becomes a space of simplicity, beauty, and innocence. When night descends, it does not bring chaos but a soothing environment under the stars, allowing people to draw closer to one another. Artificiality dissolves, and they become children of nature, clearly seeing each other.

Kapadia masterfully crafts this interplay of light and reflection. Without proper reflection, the eyes fail to recognise what they see. Through her luminous frames, Kapadia conveys this profound truth.

The film, a collaboration between France, India, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy, premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. It is the first Indian film since 1994 to compete in the main competition at Cannes, and Kapadia is the first Indian female filmmaker to win the Grand Prix.

In this Malayalam-language film, Kani Kusruti plays Prabha, Divya Prabha portrays Anu, Chhaya Kadam plays Parvati, and Hridhu Haroon excels as Shiyaz. Their performances have already earned them stardom, and they continue to shine brightly.

• বিষয়:
• All We Imagine as Light
• Payal Kapadia