Producers: Julien Graff and Thomas Hakim    Director: Payal Kapadia Screenplay: Payal Kapadia   Cast: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon, Aziz Nedumangad, Tintumol Joseph and Anand Sami    Distributor: Sideshow/Janus Films

Grade: B+

Payal Kapadia’s sophomore feature has a simple purity that’s an implicit rebuke to the overblown excesses of Bollywood, as well as the stereotypes about Indian society that even less ostentatious films usually traffic in.  “All We Imagine as Light” is extraordinary for its mixture of harsh realism and ethereal beauty in depicting both the experience of women in India’s modern cities and the religious sectarianism that pervades the society.

Kapadia’s script centers on Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha), two nurses at a shabby hospital who share a cramped flat, along with a stray cat Anu rescues from the street, in Mumbai, a megacity whose crowded bustle is presented as a welter of light and shade, of bodies moving in disorganized clumps while the thoughts of some are heard in voiceover expressing their individual hopes and fears.  Prabha and Anu, who have come from Kerala in the south for work and are more comfortable speaking Malayalam than Hindi, deal as best they can with the stream of the afflicted women who congregate in the obstetrics ward seeking treatment, but know the limitations of what they can accomplish, even if they sometimes bend the rules a bit to help.

Though they inhabit a common workplace and home, the two are very different personalities, but both have serious relationship issues.  The more solemn, reserved Prabha is married, but her husband departed for Germany shortly after their arranged ceremony, and has been absent ever since.  When newcomer Dr. Manoj   (Azees Nedumangad) shows a gentle interest in her, even asking her to read a poem he’s written (clearly with her in mind), she feels compelled to deflect his attention.  And when a rice cooker arrives in the mail from Germany, without even a note attached, her emotions are rekindled; in an emotionally wrenching moment, she literally embraces the device, a poignant expression of her longing for an intimacy that seems permanently out of reach.

The younger Anu, by contrast, is free-spirited, and she’s secretly seeing a young man named Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon).  Shanet (Tintumol Joseph), another nurse at the hospital, warns Prabha that rumors are already circulating about her “loose” roommate.   What neither knows is that Shiaz is Muslim, and the the couple have nowhere to spend time together except in the crowded streets.  Kapadia adds a note of humor to their predicament when Anu dresses in a burqa to visit Shiaz at home, only for his parents to return unexpectedly and ruin their plans.  Meanwhile Anu’s parents, oblivious of Shiaz’s existence, keep sending her news of eligible Hindu marriage prospects.

There’s another major character, Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), an older widow working as a cook in the hospital.  Her troubles are legal: a powerful real estate firm is intent on tearing down the building where her apartment is located for a luxury development, and she’s lacking the documentation that could prove her right to the place.  Prabha tries to help her develop her case, but the system is obviously rigged in favor of the rich and powerful, and ultimately Parvaty decides to leave Mumbai and return to her hometown, a seaside village south of the city where she can resume a less stressful existence.  Prabha and Anu offer to help with her move, and wind up in a quiet, secluded place unlike the one they’ve become accustomed to.

There both women find fulfillment, but in very different ways.  Shiaz has followed them, and he and Anu embrace the opportunity to express their love physically in a nearby cave.  On the beach Prabha is called on to resuscitate a man (Anand Sami) who’s been brought in, drowned, from the sea.  The effort becomes a metaphysical experience as the man morphs into her husband and begs forgiveness for abandoning her.  In its aftermath Prabha, having overcome her sense of loss, invites Parvaty, Anu—and Shiaz as well—to sit with her on the beach, chatting as they’re all illuminated by the light of the setting—or is it a rising?–sun.             

Though Kapadia touches upon troubling realities in contemporary Indian society, particularly in terms of the treatment of women, she does so with grace rather than anger, with a light hand rather than a cudgel.  The contributions of production designers Yashasvi Sabharwal, Piyusha Chalke and Shamim Khan and of costumer Maxima Basu don’t romanticize the gritty background, but cinematographer Ranabir Das adds an occasional luminous touch, especially at the close, and composer Dhritiman Das heightens the sense of potential magic in grim surroundings with a score that mixes melancholy with upbeat notes.

Under Kapadia’s sure hand, the cast offer performances that are sensitive without showiness.  Kusruti unerringly captures the quiet pain Prabha endures under her surface serenity, while Prabha and Haroon embody the spirit of young love with infectious abandon.  Kadam encapsulates the gruff resignation of a woman who must try to make it on her own, while Nedumangad’s sad demeanor demonstrates that men are not free of the feeling of isolation either.  The unhurried pacing of Kapadia and editor Clément Pinteaux gives all of them the opportunity to deepen their characters, resulting in an overall tone that comes across as very specific yet somehow timeless.

“All We Imagine as Light”—a title that suggests the yearning of its characters for a sense of connection in an apparently unfeeling world—is a remarkable piece of cinematic poetry, touching on substantive issues in Indian society but doing so with subtlety rather than hectoring didacticism.

Producers: Maria Carlota Bruno, Rodrigo Teixeira and Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre   Director: Walter Salles   Screenplay: Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega   Cast: Fernanda Torres, Fernanda Montenegro, Selton Mello, Valentina Herszage, Luiza Kosovski, Maria Manoella, Marjorie Estiano, Bárbara Luz, Cora Mora, Pri Helena, Gabriele Carneiro da Cunha, Olivia Torres, Guilherme Silveira, Antonio Saboia, Dan Stuhlbach, Thelmo Fernandes, Luiz Bertazzo, Humberto Carrão, Maeve Jinkings, Caio Horowicz, Camila Márdila, Charles Fricks, Luana Nastas, Isadora Ruppert, Daniel Dantas, Maitê Padilha and Carla Ribas   Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

Grade: B+

The fate of those who disappeared under South American military dictatorships has already generated one Oscar-winner, Argentina’s “The Official Story” (1985).  Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” may well be the second.

It focuses on a single case, that of Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), who was taken from his home in Rio de Janeiro in January, 1971, supposedly for questioning about his involvement in leftist politics.  A trained civil engineer, he’d served for two years as a parliamentary member of the Brazilian Labor Party when a military coup occurred in 1964.  After going into self-exile for a time, he returned to Brazil and settled down with his family, his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and his five children—daughters Vera (Valentina Herszage), Eliana (Luiza Kosovski), Nalu (Bárbara Luz) and Maria (Cora Mora), and son Marcelo (Guilherme Silveira). 

The first portion of Salles’ film emphasizes the happy life of the family, even as the dictatorship remained in place.  That’s explained in part by the fact that the script by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega is based on a 2015 memoir by Paiva’s son Marcelo.  But it undoubtedly also reflects director Salles’ own recollections: as an adolescent he spent time with the Paivas, and remembers the experience fondly; he portrays genial dinners and get-togethers with streams of friends and acquaintances, most of whom shared Rubens’ political views.  The conversations occasionally veer into touchy territory, but controversial observations are muted.  Meanwhile the youngsters’ play at the beach—sometimes captured in home movies taken by Vera—is carefree.  The affection in the household is obvious, despite the inevitable sibling squabbling.

Juntas are always concerned about dissidents, but in 1971 the Brazilian generals were especially on edge; an ambassador had recently been kidnapped, and roadblocks were set up to apprehend anyone who looked suspicious.  In fact, Vera and her friends had recently been stopped at one after a night on the town.  That incident was unsettling, but the arrival of three men to pick up Rubens was genuinely terrifying.  To make matters worse, Eunice and Eliana were also taken for questioning, and though the girl was quickly released, Eunice was kept in detention for twelve days and repeatedly pressured to identify people her husband might have been involved with.  Paiva himself disappeared into the system.

The rest of the film focuses on Eunice’s decades-long search for information on her husband’s whereabouts.  Most is devoted to the immediate aftermath, from Eunice’s return home to take a long shower and wash off the grime of the gloomy prison stay, through her initial futile attempts to discover her husband’s fate, to years of endeavoring to keep his arrest in the public’s mind and encouraging friends to do whatever they could to uncover the truth.  She earns a law degree and wages a persistent campaign for the truth about the disappeared to be brought to light even after the end of the dictatorship in 1985, in particular dismissing government claims that Paiva had been freed by insurgents shortly after his arrest.  The script pushes ahead first to 1996 and then to 2014, as the walls of official deception fall and the murder of her husband by the junta is finally acknowledged. 

The depiction of Eunice’s public career is accompanied by the portrayal of her as matriarch, keeping the family together as the years of Rubens’ absence go on interminably.  By the close she, the children and their families have once again emerged as a gregarious, loving clan, and Eunice, now confined to a wheelchair and suffering from Alzheimer’s, is shown expressing a flicker of recognition as she sees an image of Rubens on television in a report on those who resisted the dictatorship and paid the ultimate price.

Eunice is played in that final sequence by iconic actress Fernanda Montenegro, but it is her daughter, Torres, who carries the film as the character in her younger years.  It’s a towering performance that captures the steely resolve of the wife and mother as she struggles to keep the family together and continue her search for the facts first under the ruthless eyes of an authoritarian regime and then in a restored democracy in which she must fend off suggestions that perhaps it would be best to forget the past and concentrate on the future.  There are moments when she gives way to understandable rage—as when she pounds on the windows of a car posted outside the house to keep watch on her and the children—but for the most part she portrays Eunice with a restraint that nonetheless intimates the boiling anger inside.  The rest of the cast is excellent, whether those playing her children or the sinister men who arrest Rubens and staff the prison. Mello, as the husband involved in political matters he keeps from her in an effort to keep the family safe, makes his brief first-act role count; it is, after all, Eunice’s devotion to him and what he represented that drives her actions.

In its stateliness “I’m Still Here,” in telling this harrowing story of a family living under the darkness of dictatorship, mirrors the patience Eunice Paiva showed in seeking justice; Salles and editor Affonso Gonçalves are unafraid of somber slowness, which in some cases—the interrogation sequences, for example—creates almost unbearable tension.  Adrian Teijido’s cinematography aims for a gritty look that reflects the period—from the seventies onward—with the snatches of home movies adding to the roughness and the production design (Carlos Conti) and costumes (Cláudia Kopke) adding to the authentic feel.  Warren Ellis’ score, with its emphasis on piano and strings, adds a plaintive mood while adding to the suspense or jubilation as the narrative demands.

Given that Brazil slipped back into authoritarian rule with the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2019, a man who actually looked back with favor on the dictatorship and even tried to retain his hold on power after he lost a reelection bid—by a small margin—in 2023, the message that Salles’ film sends to his own country about political choices is especially potent.  The film presents a powerful indictment of dictatorial rule through a compelling portrait of how a brutal regime’s victimization of a single family became an inspiring story of resilience and resistance.