Payal Kapadia’s 'All We Imagine As Light': A deep dive into immigrant life and unseen narratives

There is something eminently real about Payal Kapadia’s 2024 drama. Packaged with humility and unapologetic relatability for anyone who has tasted the immigrant life in Mumbai, All We Imagine As Light plays effortlessly with themes so grave, as one does through life. Documentary-style anecdotes blend seamlessly with the stories of three women who have been dealt some tough cards, only to realise what matters most to them. With the film’s recent release in India, Kapadia talks to Bazaar India about everything it took to shine the spotlight on untold narratives.

Harper’s Bazaar: You’ve done a plethora of interviews at this point. What is one question you’re tired of hearing?

Payal Kapadia: I think I am tired of being asked what the origin of the story is. I know it’s important, but it’s out there. I think I should be asked something else.

HB: There is this line in the film that stood out to me. It goes something like: I have lived 23 years in Bombay, but I’m still afraid to call it home. What is your experience of living out of your home?

PK: I am from Mumbai, but I have always studied in different states in India. I went to school in Andhra Pradesh, then I attended FTII in Pune. I have always been in and out of the city. When you are away from home, your friends become your family. And I benefited a lot from this experience—making friends on who I can really rely. That is also the truth of making a film. A unit comprises of people who you have to trust and believe in.

Those relationships also carry on to later stages of life. Your support system eventually becomes people who were once strangers, rather than your actual family.

HB: There’s another line in the film that goes: You have to believe in the illusion of Bombay, or else you go mad. Do you think Mumbai is a city of illusion or dreams?

PK: In a way it’s both, especially for women. There is so much opportunity, as well as the magical chance to be anonymous. Cities like Mumbai are great places for people to thrive, financially and otherwise, but it’s also extremely hard. It’s not an easy life. I think life is full of contradictions, and Mumbai is no exception.

HB: There are anecdotes of many such strangers sprinkled throughout the film, independent from the main plot in a way. How did you stumble upon this idea?

PK: I am a sucker for preludes in films. My previous film was a quasi-documentary—a hybrid of fiction and non-fiction. That idea stuck with me. When you juxtapose a documentary with fiction, that brings the fiction closer to truth somehow. We hear so many voices in the city, and we see so many women with their individual struggles apart from our protagonists. That was my way of saying that these are a couple of stories, but there are millions of other stories too. For now, we are focusing on this one, watching this one, but each story is just as important as this one.

HB: Many scenes in the film reminded me of Ritwik Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960). Was his work a point of inspiration?

PK: That is a fabulous connection! A lot of Ghatak’s work has been deeply ingrained in my way of seeing cinema. Meghe Dhaka Tara is definitely one of them. In fact, at one point I wanted to show Prabha’s slippers breaking, much like Ghatak does with Neeta, which is such an iconic motif. I didn’t end up doing it, but it was surely on my mind while making the film. One thing I learnt from Ghatak is how to structure a story. If you see a film like Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1973), for example— what a structure that film has! The protagonists die in the middle of the film and the focus shifts to someone else entirely. Even with frames, as he does in Subarnarekha (1965). Ghatak has been such a huge pillar of my work.

HB: I could pick up two distinctly contradictory themes from All We Imagine As Light. One of letting go, and another of holding on. What do you think is more essential when it comes to life and love?

PK: You’re right. It really is about those two things, finally. I didn’t think of it that way, but when you strip the film down, it essentially is just that. I think it is about standing at crossroads and discovering where your threshold lies and which path makes more sense to you. But it always has to be a combination, that is why I think I unknowingly put both in the film. The more important thing is to constantly be comfortable with change. And to be okay with conflict. Without conflict, there can’t be change. The ending of the film is the start of another story, another series of shifts and changes that the characters have to face.

HB: Did making this film urge you to live differently, or change something in you?

PK: I think this film has offered a lot of learning for me. It made me question a lot of the ways in which I see the world and challenged me at every juncture. Apart from the regular hurdles that come with filmmaking, one of the things that I was trying to deal with was how I look at other women in my life. I found myself questioning a lot of my reactions to women who are older or younger than me. I felt that there was undue judgment, which I shouldn’t have had. And that’s something that stayed with me. I wanted to deal with it in the film too, with the three characters and the way they look at each other because we are so conditioned to be moralistic about other women.

HB: What’s next?

PK: I want to make another film based in Mumbai. I am observing the physical changes that are happening in the city at the moment. I’m interested in the phenomenon of shape-shifting that the city is going through. The city started with just seven islands that were cobbled together by the British East India Company. This kind of geographical metamorphosis, of what lies beneath our feet, is something that excites me at the moment.

Lead Image: Ranabir Das

Inside Image courtesy: Payal Kapadia

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