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Afternoon Clouds
दोपहर के बादल
There’s something serene yet sad in the air of the apartment that seventy-year-old Kaki shares with her Nepalese domestic helper Malti. Their window frames look out onto the Indian Ocean. The seawater and the cat begging for food fill the rooms with noise and purring. In voice-over, the women muse about jasmine flowers and rotten fruit that are supposed to bring their absent loved ones closer. This prosaic comfort—more a daydream than a real anecdote—never leads to visible tears. Yet their whispering voices eloquently express the longing and lonely mourning that filmmaker Payal Kapadia assigns to them.
Kapadia conveys more meaning in her meditative image and sound montage than in the narrative she uses. Serene household and kitchen sounds, bright blacks and vivid ochres cover the emotional load here. A verbatim narrative feels secondary. The titular clouds reveal themselves only through the smoke that (vermin?) exterminators chase through the corridors. Scans of watercolour drawings mingle with Kapadia’s images. Her patient way of looking gives both the characters and the viewer time to hang their heads.