Polyphonic City

A SOFT, SHIMMERING beauty permeates the images of Mumbai that open Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light. For all the nighttime bustle on display-the heave of people, the constant activity and chaos-Kapadia shoots with a flair for the illusory.

- BILGE EBIRI

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT DIRECTED BY PAYAL KAPADIA. JANUS FILMS/ SIDESHOW. NR.

The camera drifts, the focus slips, the figures shift; everything onscreen feels fragile and impermanent. We don't immediately hear the din of traffic or the roar of crowds as we might in a straightforward documentary. Rather, the sound is so sparse and quiet it's as if we're watching a ghost world. Occasionally, voices do waft in, unseen and unnamed, each speaking in a different language about Mumbai. One man tells us he has lived in the city for 23 years but is still afraid to call it home. Another tells us he came here after fighting with his father. A woman explains that she was pregnant but was scared to tell anybody because she'd found a good job taking care of someone else's children. There have been city symphonies in cinema before, but Kapadia's film is altogether more pensive and intimate. Call it a city nocturne or a city whisper.