All we imagine as perfect: Deepanjana Pal takes a second look at AWIAL
Payal Kapadia’s film is now streaming, so everyone can see that it isn’t ‘technically very poor’? Is it flawless? Well, it isn’t that either, she says.
Payal Kapadia’s award-winning film, All We Imagine as Light (AWIAL), is finally more easily accessible, on Disney+ Hotstar.

This is not good news for director Jahnu Barua, who was on the jury that failed to select it as India’s Oscar entry, and then attempted to explain that failure by calling it “very poor technically”. But it is also not good news for the many critics who have swooned over Kapadia’s film.
While Barua’s statement is factually incorrect, and the world will now be free to view the proof, the fulsome praise heaped on the film has arguably raised expectations to inconvenient heights. And can any film this layered get everything right? Some mixed emotions are inevitable, I think.
For instance, many have praised Kapadia’s decision to make two Malayali nurses the protagonists in a story about Mumbai because her choice highlights the immigrants and women who have been integral to the city’s culture. To others, however, these two characters have felt like flat stereotypes drawn in broad strokes, rather than realised and realistic women.
Inevitably, our experiences and exposure decide how we perceive a work of art. A film such as AWIAL is less an ode to realism — the idea that a village is a safer, more welcoming space than a city for rebellious young lovers and single women is nothing short of a fairy tale — and more an exercise in persuasion.
This film reframes Mumbai as a city not of dreams, but of disappointments. An idyllic village life is offered as a counterpoint. What chord this binary strikes in a viewer depends on their relationship with the city.
Meanwhile, Kapadia’s film contains moments that feel mesmeric because of how masterfully the cinematography and background score complement one another, and because of the way she expertly weaves shadow and sound into her storytelling. Yet, in the midst of the film’s ephemeral beauty, there are narrative decisions that feel like blindspots.
My biggest discomfort lies in Kapadia’s decision to reduce Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) to a device, rather than a protagonist. It is only Kadam’s powerful performance that allows Parvaty to have the impact she does, but the actor is limited by what is sadly a supporting role — and shouldn’t have been.
A woman who could have made up the third of a trio instead exists only to help flesh out the character of Prabha (Kani Kusruti). That Prabha notices Parvaty, despite being higher than the older woman in the social and professional hierarchy, tells us there’s more to Prabha than her passive facade.
Parvaty is proof that Prabha is capable of definitive action and kindness, as when she finds Parvaty a lawyer. There’s even a laughable scene in which we’re expected to believe that Prabha introduces Parvaty, the widow of a mill worker, to the Left-leaning politics of unions and protest.
Even the charming interlude in which Parvaty dances drunkenly with Anu (Divya Prabha) is more about Prabha, who cannot let herself go.
Throughout the film, the working classes are stripped of faces and personalities. They are represented merely as a chaotic swirl. Parvaty is the only person from that demographic that we actually see, and we don’t even see her for herself.
This mirror of the real-life class dynamic in our society may be unwitting, but it is also disappointing. That the one working-class character we are presented with seems to always be in distress or in need of rescuing seems a disservice to a diverse and vibrant demographic that has traditionally been the backbone of Mumbai, keeping its chaos in check with their labour.
The only time Parvaty takes the lead is when she is the first to throw a stone at a hoarding erected by the builders who are forcing her out of her home. It’s a poignant moment. The two women emerge from the darkness and then flee back into it, after their little act of defiance. What remains illuminated is the tinny promise of a luxury home in a skyscraper.
With reality as crushing as it is for the working classes in Mumbai, I wish that, at least in this work of fiction, Parvaty could have had more time in the spotlight.
(To reach Deepanjana Pal with feedback, write to @dpanjana on Instagram)
