On the surface it is a simple story, but reaches inside to quiet emotions. The focus is on three women living in a huge diverse city of Mumbai. The three are predominantly Malayalam speakers, but are surrounded by many other languages. The link between the women is the hospital they work at, but at quite different functions; one is a chief nurse, another a receptionist and the third is a cook.
Prahba, the chief nurse had had an arranged marriage, but whose husband left to go to Germany and had ceased to write letters. Even though approached by other men she maintained her loyalty to her husband, but felt abandoned.
Anu, the receptionist and Prabha's room mate was more open and expressive. We are shown her dealing with a woman who was despairing about having two many children and a husband who would not consent to a vasectomy. She snuck some contraceptive pills to her. She had fallen in love with a Muslim man and knew her parents would be extremely upset.
Parvathy, the cook lived in a small housing unit after her husband had died. She was being coerced by a big company that wanted that space for a big development. She was forced out of it and went to her home village accompanied by the two other women for support.
The village is by the sea and it happens that a man is pulled out of the sea and apparently dead. Prabha clears everyone away and with CPR is able to revive him. A day or so later she is brought to the man as he wakes up. For awhile she seems to think of him as her husband. He asks how long he has been unconscious and in turn she asks him what he felt. His description is strange, but somehow he feels everything he imagined became light.
Anu is asked to invite Shiaz who had followed a great distance to meet the other two women. At the end the three women feel a greater cameraderie and essentially that is the end of the movie with some viewers mystified and a few others understanding.
There are two scenes that upset a few Indian movie goers. In one scene we see Prabha changing her clothes and unnecessarily her breasts are exposed for a few seconds. The other scene was with Anu having sex with her lover, Shiaz.
It takes a talented cast and crew to create such an award winning film. Here are a few:
Payal Kapadia was the director and writer. Although she does not speak Maylayalam she was able to make good use of a Malayalam writer to get the right nuance. As a student she signed a boycott pledge with the Film Workers for Palestine. Payal started with shorts and had one presented at Cannes and later her documentary won the Golden Eye award. She has 6 director credits and 3 for writing. Her mother did a painting that inspired the title.
Julian Graff was one of the producers representing international involvement. He represented the French. He has 6 producer credits.
Topshe wrote the music. Well known musician and has done many albums. He has 1 music department credit plus one as composer and 1 as an editor. The 9 minutes of music at the closing is very beautiful.
Ranabir Das was the cinematographer who has worked closely with Payal. Growing up a downstairs neighbor was Anik Dutta, a well known film maker. Ranabir has 9 cinematography credits, 2 as an editor and 2 as producer.
Clement Pinteaux was the editor. He studied editing at La Femis film school in Paris. He has 24 credits as editor, 6 editorial credits and directing.
Romil Modi was the casting director. He had done 500 commercials before getting involved with films. Romil has 29 casting credits, 3 for acting and 3 for secondary direct credit including "Budhia Singh Born to Run" (2016), "Newton" (2017) and "Lapataa Ladies" (2023) . He was praised as the casting director for the two contenders for the Oscar foreign film nomination, "Laapataa Ladies" and "All You Can Imagine As Light" with the former prevailing. "All We Imagine as Light" was also on a short list for France, but lost to "Emilia Perez" (2024). See http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2024/04/laapataa-ladies.html
Kani Kusruti played Payal. Her parents were activists and had dropped their last name to avoid discrimination. Kani needed a last name for a school requirement and adopted Kasruti which means "mischievous" in Malayalam. She had studied at L'Ecole International de Theatre" and went into theatre. Kani has 47 acting credits including "Killer Soup" (2024)
Divya Prabha played Anu. She has 18 acting credits including "Take Off" (2017). See http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2021/02/take-off-brutality-in-tikrit.html
Chhaya Kadam played Parvathy. She once played kabbadi at the state level. She got involved with the theatre. Chhaya has 67 acting credits spread over Marathi, Hindi and Malayalam languages including "Budhia Singh Born to Run" (2016), "Andhahun" (2018), "Gangubai Kathiawadi" (2022) and "Laapataa Ladies" (2023). Here is a post on "Andhahun" that Chhaya appeared in and the film had been remade into a Telegu film...http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2021/10/telegu-remake-opens-my-eyes.html
Hridu Haroon played Shiaz. He has 7 acting credits.
Anand Sami played the drowning man rescued by Payal. He was prominent in theatre. Anand has 7 acting credits in film including "The Family Man" (2021). See http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2023/03/the-family-man.html
Ever since I discovered films in the Malayalam language they remain a favorite source. See http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2021/03/how-i-discovered-malayalam-cinema-and.html
I saw this film on a DVD borrowed from the library with subtitles. It also had an interesting feature with Payal Kapadia talking about her history and the film.
As usual I have bolded the first mention of films I have seen. If you follow the links you should be able to determine if any film is worth following up.
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