All we Imagine as Light - A Review

 I am not a film critic and normally do not see films that are made on lives of Indians and India and receiving many international awards, as often, these are formula films. But as all we imagine as light has been talked about so much and has been directed by a woman with a prominent women cast, that I did finally see it and felt like sharing my thoughts about the film.   

All we imagine is light - is  not convincing  and the important issues the film attempts to cover  have been addressed superficially. One reason why the film that has won many international awards, is not convincing to an Indian viewer like me could be because with some foreign producers, it is natural that a foreign audience was also in mind while making the film.

To me as a woman who has lived for long durations in both the rural and urban places of India, the portrayal of rural – village settings in the film- is not convincing.  There are different ways in which the film tries to show that Mumbai has space constraint and can be stifling and gloomy. As against that, the film tries to project (as I understand) that rural India has wide open spaces and therefore it could be less stifling and bright. This message comes across through different frames in the film, as well as the very noticeable scene where the young couple is unable to find a place in Mumbai where they could have sex. Whereas, it was possible for them to do so in the space a village offers to them. I also failed to understand why the young couple could not spend private time in the shared accommodation of the young nurse in Mumbai. While lovemaking in a village is shown as possible as compared to the difficulty the couple faced in Mumbai, this is not always the case. Villages are often not accepting of sex outside of marriage and in a public space, particularly in case of a woman. And so is drinking alcohol difficult for women in many rural (not tribal) settings.    

I remembered the author Ashapurna Devi and her book Pratham Pratishruti, where moving out from a village to Kolkata is explained by the writer as liberating for a woman. Although the book is based in the 1960s, the situation is no different in most villages of India still.  Many Indian villages are patriarchal and feudal. Whereas metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, etc. offer anonymity and freedom/azadi and could possibly be less constraining for women in spite of lack of wide open spaces.  

 Besides, rural housing for the marginalised sections of the society is as bad as it is in Mumbai in most cases.  So is rural transport, which is not much better than the local trains of Mumbai. In villages, there is poor frequency of public transport, bad roads or even no roads; there is frequent breakdown of public transport, which is also as crowded.

Transport in some rural parts of India, Photo Credit: Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangathan, Madhya Pradesh.

Coupled with this, poor infrastructure in villages including power cuts, no proper supply of LPG/cooking gas cylinders, use of wood based stoves, poor water supply, poor health infrastructure, poor education, etc, makes life difficult for women in villages. It is the woman still, who fetches wood, water, etc. often from long distances in the villages of India. This is not to say life is any easy in Mumbai. pan>

Women carrying LPG cylinder as home delivery often not available in rural area, Photo Credit: Nandini Oza. 

Woman in rural area coating her house floor with dung coat, Photo Credit: Nandini Oza

Even the lack of job opportunities in rural India, particularly for women not having land or doing agriculture labour is very limiting. These multiple issues that women in rural areas have to deal with are only superficially/ briefly addressed in the film. There is a half-hearted attempt to show the difficulties with the scene of open defecation (which seemed very out of place and to shock rather than drive a message), a cursory reference to lack of job opportunities, power cut and lack of a hospital. 

Back breaking work in the fields during monsoons in a village in western ghats, Photo Credit: Nandini Oza

Woman collecting and carrying headload of tamarind to stock pile and sale in a village in western ghats,  Photo Credit: Nandini Oza

 

One important thing missed in the film is that cities like Mumbai have less caste discrimination than what is prevailing in the Indian villages and this could be less oppressive to women. Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar considered villages as having caste discrimination and oppression.  With all these considerations, women often move out of villages to cities for education, jobs, better infrastructure, anonymity and freedom. 

For women, particularly belonging to the marginalised section of the society, life is most certainly very difficult in Mumbai, but that it can be any less difficult in villages as I could infer from the film- is not convincing.

 

Having been an activist of one of the most powerful people’s movements in the Narmada valley against forcible displacement, I found the portrayal of displacement/eviction and the struggle against it in the film not convincing and addressed superficially. Some quick discussions between the two actors about the issue, a quick meeting with a lawyer, a cursory shot of a protest meeting and sloganeering, the fleeting emotion in stoning the builder’s  poster and that the matter almost ends there (happily) ever after, is not what happens in reality. The issue of forced displacement and eviction, the struggle against it in cities, rural and tribal areas are long and scarring permanently. The film misses to address this struggle and the impact of forced eviction with due time and sensitivity that the issue truly deserves.

 

Women of Narmada Bachao Andolan being arrested by police during their struggle against displacement, Photo Credit: NBA collective

Women in NBA fight against forced displacement, Photo Credit: NBA

 

Confrontation with police in struggle against forcible displacement during a program by NBA in early 1990s, Photo Credit: Narmada Diary

The issues of the nursing profession too have been handled superficially. There was ample scope to address the many dimensions of the nursing profession and issues therein.  But as the film attempts to address many issues at a time, it does not do justice to this topic also. Nursing jobs in a city and displacement/ eviction from home are overwhelming issues by themselves for women, particularly single women. These topics needed time to be told well in the film. Similarly, the issue of sexuality, bi-sexuality, etc. are touched upon hurriedly in the film. 

The problem with the film is that too many sensitive issues have been packed together, so, most have been addressed superficially. Therefore, this comparison of life of three women in a city and in a village is not convincing and feels it has been addressed sketchily and sometimes merely to shock and awe a foreign audience.

 I also found the performance of Kani Kasturi and Chayya Kadam short of the roles/ characters they are performing. Divya Prabha was good however.

I have also randomly asked some of my friends in India if they liked the film and the answer I received mostly has been “no”. While the film received many awards internationally, for us in India, the issues that women face across class and caste, in tribal, rural, peri-urban and urban spaces are very real, we see and experience them daily and we are exposed to these issues in many different ways, powerfully.  

 To conclude, the film, all we imagine is light is a formula film. For an Indian audience including the rural audience, there are several films and documentaries that have placed issues women face, in a powerful, delicate, sensitive and in a subtle way. And I, as an Indian viewer, continue to prefer subtleness over clichéd attempts to shock and awe.

 

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