Film Forum

In a vast, heaving Mumbai that bustles by day and glimmers by night, two nurses — roommates by chance — form a makeshift sisterhood. Proper, practical Prabha grieves her estranged marriage but holds her teeming desires (and an eager suitor) at bay; youthful, sensuous Anu cherishes secret text messages and steamy trysts with a Muslim boy. Meanwhile, a no-nonsense neighbor whose widowhood leaves her struggling to keep her flat recruits the two younger women to her village by the sea — where all three find unlikely refuge in the clarity of shared wanting, if not having.

2024     117 MIN.     FRANCE / INDIA / NETHERLANDS / LUXEMBOURG
SIDESHOW / JANUS FILMS     IN MALAYALAM AND HINDI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES          

Trailer

Reviews

CRITIC’S PICK. “Extraordinary…A quiet drama about fragility, beauty and kinship…Set in contemporary Mumbai, it centers on three Hindu women, their everyday lives and the bonds that they share with one another as well as with the larger world. It’s the kind of modestly scaled and lightly plotted international movie — with characters who look and sound like real people, and whose waking hours are set to the pulse of life — that can get lost amid the year-end glut of Oscar-grubbing titles. So, it’s worth mentioning upfront that it is also flat-out wonderful, one of finest of the year… One of the pleasures of Kapadia’s filmmaking is that she’s inviting you to discover her characters on their terms, which means embracing the inner and outer rhythms of their lives.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

★★★★ “STUNNING. A luminous slice of Mumbai life. Like a dream, this is a film that washes over you... A reminder of the transcendent power of cinema.”
– Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press

“Cause for celebration…so delicately felt and sensuously textured…with a quiet truthfulness that, like the glittering lights of the city, lingers expansively in the memory.”
– Justin Chang, The New Yorker (ranking ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT as #2 of all films in Competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival)

“A visually and sociologically rich portrait of a city that also manages to achieve an affecting—dare I say novelistic—depth of character… Depicts Mumbai with vivid and poetic specificity… [Kapadia brings] a visual and dramatic deftness that marks her as a major young filmmaker.”
– Zachary Barnes, The Wall Street Journal

“This is a glorious film… There is a freshness and emotional clarity in [ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT], an enriching humanity and gentleness which coexist with fervent, languorous eroticism.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (UK)

“A romantic, sumptuous and culturally complex character study of three women… Visually transportive…vibrantly capturing the streets of Mumbai and the verdant tangle of the jungle with equal care…already stands as an early majestic masterwork, told with incredible control and uncommon force of will.”
– Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com

“The heat, hustle, glory and grind of modern-day Mumbai give way to something all the more mysterious and ever so beguiling in Payal Kapadia’s ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT…an expansive and intimate feature.”
– Ben Croll, The Wrap

“Kapadia has established her rare talent for finding passages of exquisite poetry within the banal blank verse of everyday Indian life.” ­
– Jessica Kiang, Variety