CANNES 2024 - remote notes

[Chris Knipp]

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (Payal Kapadia)

In Competition. India's first Cannes Competition film in 30 years, says S.M Kaufman in INDIEWIRE, 'is a sensual triumph." "Dreamlike and gentle," says Bradshaw in the GUARDIAN, finally giving a film here 5/5 stars. The film is the story of three Mumbai hospital employees in monsoon season, two nurses and a cook, all originally from small towns, two of whom are roommates, the younger one causing scandal by having in ill-concealed Muslim boyfriend, a rejection of arranged marriage. The eldest of the women is threatened with eviction due to an oversight of her late husband. Jessica Kiang in VARIETY says with just two features (this is the second, the first fiction) Kapadia "has established her rare talent for finding passages of exquisite poetry within the banal blank verse of everyday Indian life." The eldest decides to quit the hospital and go back to her home village and the other two women accompany her. DP Ranabir Das gives all sorts of light, Kiang says, a "gorgeous glamor." The portrait of the city is "unusually rich," so it's "almost a wrench" when the second half moves to the country but the new setting focuses more on the women's developed "bonds of mutual support" that burn brighter. And the Muslim boyfriend has secretly followed. Kapadia won the documentary award at Cannes in 2021 for her film in Directoers' Fortnight, A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING. Fionnuala Halligan of SCREEN DAILY, who also uses the word "gentle" as well as for the latter part "mystical," says there's "a strong romantic streak" in the depiction of Mumbai that "calls to mind Wong Kar-wai's great love affair with the city of Hong Kong." Bradshaw notes up front a "languorous eroticism" and "something epiphanic in the later scenes and mysterious final moments." 114 mins. ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT has jumped to the top of the SCREEN DAILY jury grid with a 3.3 rating, on a par with Sean Baker's ANORA.