Reflections on 'All We Imagine as Light'

It is not an easy thing to diagnose a movie which has won praises and accolades from the enlightened breed of art cinema enthusiasts all over the world. The almost universal enthusiasm generated in favour of the movie is indicative of a steep rise in the old cinematic flavour that finds satisfaction in perceiving India through the pigeonholed prisms that dominated the last century. The backwardness that should have been thwarted by the onslaughts of the art cinema consumed by the enlightened upper class audience has not bore fruits. ‘All we imagine as Light’ is a renewal of the age old affirmation of the art cinema addled with a gentle touch of naivety that is abundantly found in the movies that undergirds cinema hinting at an outburst of revolutionary potential.

The movie tells us a pitiful tale about two nurses dealing with their miseries and one old widow lady who has been evicted from her home by an evil businessman as she doesn’t possess adequate documents to prove that it is her home. The blandness, the repetitive nature of the tale, and the all too familiar bollywood narrative that regularly features the trope of the deceitful capitalist exploiting the poor are present here. What is absent here is the heroic fight against the evil capitalist, replaced by two powerful women aiming to smash the posters of the businessman hung in the market, discreetly late at night.

One nurse, Prabha, is married to her husband who works in Germany. Their communication abruptly stopped after some days of the husband settling up abroad. She’s a woman of impeccable character and rebukes the advances made by a doctor who works in the same hospital. The other nurse, Anu, is in love with a Muslim boy, Shiaz. The other nurses gossip about her but she doesn’t give a dime to the public opinion. In her, a silent rebellion is brewing against the constant demands of her parents who insist her to get married. She doesn’t believe in arranged marriages, since she doesn’t understand how strangers can spend their life together. The third character is of an old widow, Parvaty, who has been living in the flat she has no papers of. This creates a disarray in her life as a big businessman claims it as his property.

The interior of the movie is designed in a manner of delicately carved craft that bewitches the regular person and elicits instinctive profuse praise from the upper class audience it was intended to be made for. The exterior of the movie is poised attractively, it seldom descends to the crude deception of the senses, for that is an easy route to be dismissed as a form of propaganda. ‘Aazadi’ or Emancipation might be discerned as a central theme of the movie. There’s a glimpse of graffiti with Aazadi written, that sneakily appears in the movie and passes without any squeak. There are no long speeches and sermons that we hear on Aazadi. There’s no explicit description of what Aazadi consists of, its vagueness enhances its appeal to the audience. The ambiguity that Aazadi contains, can only be deciphered when we peel the layers off the plotline.

The insipid cinephile cannot recognise that underlying the story is a resistance, a protest, an unseen force that runs through it, silently. The protest is against the social structure of marriage. Marriage has failed, effectively becoming null and void in the case of Prabha. She must exhibit a denouncement of her marriage, it has caged her desires that are unfulfilled. A cinephile is exhorted to condone her when she touches the lips of a stranger. The context of her kissing a stranger is amusing, written in such a cleverly disguised way that no one can dismiss it as a case of infidelity. A cinephile is supposed to just chuckle and approve of it.

Marriage is irrelevant and unnecessary for Anu. Since Anu and Shiaz love each other, they must have sex, to display that it is true love, which prompts them to usher in amorous adventures whenever they get privacy in the public sphere. Parking areas, Gardens and parks, caves and beaches, they are, throughout the movie, struggling for a space to have sex with each other. We’re spared of the trouble of a couple who fight against their parents to get married to each other, which is conventionally considered a real struggle. The struggle here is for the unconventional, it is for sex, not marriage, which doesn’t matter for both of them. The struggle for Anu is about how to reach the home of Shiaz’s uncle who is planning to attend a marriage. She adorns a veil or burka to cover her face from public scrutiny and is prepared to travel to the specified place. The adjournment of the plan brings a dreadful despair to her face.

Anu and Shiaz belong to two distinct religions. Their love is forbidden in the outer world that inhabits a strict tribal solidarity, where insularity is an accepted fact when it comes to the matters like marriage. Interreligious marriages are a taboo in the society, their occurrence may lead to ostracism and disavowal of the kids by parents. Anu once even thinks to flee away from the family for her love. Whether she can conceive of such plans in actuality, we’re not told. But we know that she can be deceitful, as she’s to her parents. She employs a mischievous lie of ‘I’ve some work’ to cut off the call of her mother and go meet Shiaz. The obligations and truthfulness to the family are indeed not cared for, anything that comes in the way of the fullest expression of individuality, must fall.

Since both are young and having fun, they must fulfill their passions without any hindrance and obligations. Since fleeting love has no obligations, except that of its physical fulfilment, it becomes an invincible right to indulge in it. Not only does the gossip about it become wrong but its approval is the only correct thing to do. When Prabha rudely dishonours Anu on the account of her free indulgence in pre- marital intimacy, Anu feels angry and expresses displeasure. Prabha is made to apologise. The old virtues are replaced by a new set of virtues. Vice masks itself as a new virtue.

The desire of the individual takes precedence and trumps the will of the world. To provide an outlet to the momentary passions which has no firm ground whatsoever, except the hollow promises of love, leads to the cold conclusion that such an undertaking also risks being dissolved at an individual will. Since romantic love is unsupported and unrecognised by the society, its occurrence of extinguishment in the one party, may drive the forsaken lover, to intense despair, if not death by self- harm.

The social structure of marriage which regulates the chaotic force of Eros, which provides a healthy passage to the expression of love, is considered an outdated remnant of the bygone era here. Love is immediately realised. Passion is fulfilled straight away. Delayed gratification is considered as a denial of love. The probing questions about life and long term commitment are shrugged away. When Anu asks Shiaz where they would be after 10-15 years, if she would still have a place in his life, there is no clear answer from Shiaz and the question goes unanswered. The long-term vision of love, of patience and waiting in love, is understood as an absurd superstition, worthy of mockery. There are no promises of forever and eternal love, the metaphysical form of love which prompts one to bear enormous sacrifice and still remain true to the conviction of truth is forgotten. There can be no pain in love. The maximization of pleasure is the only principle that is acceptable here. The possibility of observing grief is superfluous. To succumb to all temptations that are present in life is honourable.

The spirit of subtlety that this movie embodies, in delivering its message is its core strength. When Parvati decides to go work in the village leaving Mumbai, she refers to the city as the ‘city of illusions.’ When the dialogue is being spoken, we are watching an idol of God Ganesha and the banner of Coca cola on the screen. This elusive allusion serves as the message of the movie; that religion and capitalism are illusions, that they must be left behind, just like Parvaty leaves Mumbai. One must applaud such shrewdness of the enterprise in the way the message of the movie is illustrated. We’re offered in the movie a more moving cause that ought to be venerated: workers’ unity. The portraits of Savitri Bai and Jyotiba Phule adorn the organised protest meeting where the loud slogans of workers’ unity are raised. The imagery that is invoked consists of a mute protest against the social system, against which workers’ unity is paramount. This illusion of unity can only be achieved through a slander and vilification campaign of the evil capitalist, an outsider who doesn’t share their life. He is trying to become a New God, Parvaty quips.

The anticipation that was created through accolades and praises is a magnificent achievement of the movie. We are not offered any penetrating probing of the modern maladies of love and acute sufferings of the working class. Instead, what is offered to us is a reinforcement of an age-old guilt, reminding us that our existence in itself perpetuates a cycle of perpetual oppression against the working class. The solidarity against those forces by clapping for the movie is a chance to redeem oneself, to absolve oneself against the tormenting guilt. It also constitutes as a glorious display of virtue, albeit hollow and freed from any actual work of action.

Lastly, ‘All we imagine as light’ can only be imagined by less enlightened mortals like us as a pit of darkness, where the vapidity of the life of those characters stares at us in the void. Since the beginning of the movie, we’re waiting for that gutsy punch of the plotline to come and heave our souls into a despairing melancholic experience, an ocassion of rare occurrence. The preparation for that ‘Eureka’ moment is built continuously throughout the movie until screen credits roll out and one gasps in a state of horrid, bitter disappointment. The movie’s biggest achievement is that it was able to manufacture a widely accepted notion that this dullness on the screen in itself contains a profound commentary on the state of Indian society.