All We Imagine as Light

Is Mumbai the city of dreams or illusions? This question is posed midway through writer/director Payal Kapadia’s lush, meditative feature following the interconnected lives of three nurses striving to find their truest selves amidst the hustle and bustle of more than twenty million fellow souls—no small feat in a metropolis where ancient tradition and modernity are quarreling neighbors.

The truth is, however, Mumbai—rendered here in all its kaleidoscopic complexity and as a character in its own right—may be neither dream nor illusion but a knot to be untied between the threads of past and potential future. By the time we reach the Cannes 2024 Grand Prix award-winning film’s heartrending, transcendent denouement, we realize the city’s constant state of becoming may be a reflection of its inhabitants’ hearts—and ours.