49/37
In Mumbai, nurse Prabha’s daily life is thrown into disarray when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her young roommate Anu tries in vain to find a place in the city near her boyfriend, who lives with Prabha and Anu, two working nurses. The city’s multicultural atmosphere is evident in the film’s opening scene, which features Mumbai locals using dubbing in Bengali, Hindi and Marathi. Using footage in documentary format, the film begins with a vibrant Mumbai, capturing the daily hustle and bustle of a metropolis of 22 million people. Mixed into the colourful cityscape are the voices of real workers who have moved to Mumbai in search of work. The film centres on Prabha and Anu, who both work in a busy hospital, Prabha as the head nurse and Anu as the receptionist. The aspirations and difficulties of migrants in Mumbai are embodied by both women. There is a touch of sadness in Prabha’s story; Shortly after her marriage, her husband left for work in Germany and they have not spoken since. However, Anu is involved in a secret affair with a young Muslim, which obviously draws criticism from her family as well as societal pressure and Islamophobia even in the metropolis itself. Their personal lives and wider social issues are intertwined in the story. Through their shared poems and peaceful walks home from work, a Malay doctor colleague who struggles with Hindi offers Prabha a rare hope of tenderness and connection. At the same time, Anu grapples with the complexities of her interfaith relationships against the backdrop of growing social tensions under the right-wing Modi government. Kapadia’s film is a critique of the socio-economic problems facing the working class in India. A subplot involving Parvati, a cook in a hospital who is threatened with eviction from her own home, where she has lived for many years, due to lack of documents, underscores the grim reality of the country’s recent political changes. Kapadia uses a cinematic style that is both personal and large-scale. The film’s softer scenes, such as Prabhas reading poetry by torchlight or the intimate encounter with a rice cooker sent to her by her husband, contrast with the cacophony of Mumbai. In the film’s third act, the story moves from the hustle and bustle of the city to the silence and peace of rural India. This shift allows you to escape the routine of everyday life. Prabhas’s fantastical wall of finding a hermit on the beach and rescuing him embodies her desire for a fresh start and human relationships.
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