Eye For Film >> Movies >> As Light As Air (2026) Film Review
A little over 60 minutes, first time director Umair Bilal's As Light As Air makes good on the weightlessness promised by its title. There's a featheriness to the way this experiential travelogue wonders through Pakistani sufi shrine town Sehwan, content to remain at a distance from Sehwan's denizens, refusing anything that might risk editorialising.
Capturing residents and visitors as they make pilgrimages, pray, play and dance, a few voiceover interjections provide colour and history, but this is primarily a patchwork piece devoted to conveying an enigmatic sense of place, rather than following a clear through line. It’s a tapestry of small scenes, consistently intriguing in its textured depiction of the everyday, ranging from vendors baking naans in streetside tandoor ovens and women paying their respects at shrines to milkmen going about their rounds.
Editor Siddhant Sarin steers the film’s isolated moments with a lilting rhythm, ensuring nothing outstays its welcome, though some scenes might have benefitted from deeper immersion. A matam scene of topless men beating their chests in unison offers a moment of true intensity, while a closing sequence of entranced believers in the throes of worship provides an ecstatic climax in a film where music is a constant, whether it’s a group of camera-aware men dancing to a remix of qawwali giant Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, or a harmonium and tabla duo performing on the street.
Anyone wanting sustained insight or detail might be disappointed, but Bilal wants you to be enchanted rather than illuminated.
Reviewed on: 12 Aug 2026
