The Illusion Of Realism: Studying Set Design In Cinema

By Prisha Sheth

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For the longest time through history, we have been keen on telling stories with the urge to make them feel real. Across cultures and societies, realism is sometimes defined as a moral benchmark. Whether through myth, theatre, or literature, stories have always searched for ways to feel true, even when they were entirely imagined. This urge is also reflected in cinema, sparking a debate around realism. The closer the film appears to everyday lives, the more authentic it is assumed to be. We often begin with this assumption.

But when did this assumption become a rule?

Stories have existed long before realism did. Cinema, at its very core, has never been a mirror.

Every frame is a decision, every place is chosen. To call cinema a reflection of the real world is to ignore the fact that reality itself is never presented authentically. So what exactly are we then calling real? And maybe realism is the origin of cinema, but it was never the sole purpose of storytelling. So why do we enforce it so much?

While realism was the birth of cinema, where the Lumiere brothers produced short films recording everyday real life without any staging, slowly, early cinema embraced spectacle and exaggeration. Films like ‘Trip to the Moon’ showed narratives far from reality. Realism again emerged later as a deliberate artistic and political movement, most notably with Italian Neorealism after World War II, when filmmakers like Jean Renoir and soviet montage films like Battleship Potemkin rejected theatricality to represent social and economic truth. This movement gave birth to what we call “cinematic realism”. But today, realism is just a style, not a moral truth. Some stories need restraint and proximity; others demand symbolism and scale.

If realism were truly essential for emotional connection, fantasy films would fail entirely. And yet, some of the most emotionally resonant films exist in worlds far away from our own. The Lion King is not about human beings, and it in no way reflects lived reality in any literal sense. It is a story about lions who speak, sing, and rule kingdoms. Still, at its emotional core, the father and son relationship, guilt, loss, and the burden of inheritance, is undeniably human. Audiences connect to it not because the world is realistic, but because the emotions are.

However, fantasy cinema has it easier. It openly declares its distance from reality, and perhaps that honesty makes it easier for audiences to surrender to emotion. We do not question plausibility because the film never claims to be real in the first place.

The problem arises not in fantasy but in films that deal with recognisable, realistic situations, yet choose grandeur and exaggeration in creating their visual world.

It begins when a film claims to be about us, about our lives, our histories, our societies. That is when we ask questions, is it too over the top? Is it real? Is it believable?

Why is exaggeration acceptable when the world is imaginary, but questioned when the world is familiar?

When filmmakers like Sanjay Leela Bhansali heighten real spaces, palaces that are too grand, colours that are too rich, it is often seen as a distortion of reality rather than an interpretation of it. But in film, realistic spaces are also designed; nothing is really “real”. A “normal” house on screen is still curated. Mess is designed, light is controlled, and objects are placed with intention. So here the difference is not between real and unreal, but between visible and invisible design.

Is there any right or wrong between visible and invisible design?

When I saw Gangubai for the first time, I didn’t wonder if this was how a real brothel in Kamathipura looked. The space feels less like a location and more like an extension of Gangubai’s character. Heeramandi takes this even further, turning the brothel into something grand. Both are far from realism, and yet I found myself fully immersed in them (the magic of Bhansali), because it does not change reality, it just exaggerates it; in filmy terms, we could say it adds more “masala”. While Bhansali creates extravagant worlds, he has great attention to detail at the same time. Whether it’s his symbolic uses of colour, for example, Devdas, rich reds and golds symbolise passion, wealth and tragedy, or the use of decorative items that define a character's personality, like the Dev Anand poster in Gangubai’s room.

Exaggerated, visible production design in realistic settings functions much like fantasy does; it externalises emotion. A character’s loneliness can be amplified by scale, and their desire by colour. These spaces do not aim to replicate the physical world as it is. Rather, they express how the character feels and, in turn, bank on their interactions with the space. So, can we label this a distortion, or is it just narrative honesty?

There also exists a school of thought that rejects this debate altogether. Absurdist and surrealist filmmakers such as David Lynch and Terry Gilliam are less concerned with whether a space feels real or exaggerated. Instead, they dismantle the very expectation that production design must follow logic. Their films intentionally create discomfort, using disorientation as a tool rather than a flaw. 

If a film can reject both realism and exaggeration and still provoke emotion and hold the viewer’s attention, then credibility in cinema may lie not in how closely a space resembles the real world, but in how honestly it translates the filmmaker’s vision. In absurdist cinema, production design follows a consistent internal logic, even if that logic defies reality. This consistency prevents the experience from feeling jarring. 

For instance, if rabbits were to suddenly appear in a film like ‘Gully Boy’, the moment would feel absurd and disruptive, breaking the film’s established reality. In Inland Empire, however, the appearance of rabbits feels almost expected. The film’s visual and tonal language prepares the audience for such interruptions. However, this takes us slightly away from the main discussion, so returning to the central point.

The resistance to such exaggeration may come from cinema’s tendency to believe that realistic stories are expected to look realistic and restrained. But emotions are rarely restrained or subtle. They are often overwhelming, dramatic, and excessive.

Why, then, must the spaces that hold these emotions remain muted and subtle? Why must the intensity be felt but never seen?

I believe that intensity is important, but only to a certain extent. Spaces should support the characters and the narrative arc, not overpower them to the extent that they become jarring or distracting. When exaggeration is pushed too far, it risks feeling didactic, almost spoon-fed, leaving little room for the audience to arrive at emotion on their own. Cinema loses its ability to invite interpretation when everything is already visually declared.

Overstatement can also create emotional distance. Instead of drawing the audience deeper into the story, excessive design can pull them out of it, making the world feel imposing. No matter how stylised a film is, there must remain some connective thread to reality, something familiar enough to hold on to.

This approach aligns closely with the idea of formalism. Formalism states that films should be a bend in reality, an extension of reality, and not a complete change in reality.

Exaggerated production design that follows this formalist thinking, it extends the reality to lengths, but never leaves or replaces it. Just like in Gangubai, while the sets feel grand and huge and not cramped like most brothels in reality, the uneven, unpolished walls, the faded and uncoloured surfaces, the chipped paint and worn corners, sparse furniture, harsh lighting, and the lack of brightness in the space strip the comfort of the grandeur. Then, here the space still carries the discomfort and darkness of the brothel, even though it is grand.

And yet, realism also has its own power. Therefore, “Formalism V/S Realism”.

When spaces feel lived-in, familiar, and imperfect, the distance between the audience and the characters reduces. Here design does not call for attention; it allows the emotion to surface without any interference. In intimate dramas or socially grounded stories, realism can create a kind of honesty that feels unforced.

Even here, nothing is accidental. Making something look “ordinary” on screen is often harder than making it stylised. Every object must feel unnoticed while being carefully placed. So, is invisible design truly invisible? Or have we simply learned not to question it?

A film like Gully Boy shows realism in set design, this does not draw attention to itself but rather disappears or mixes into the background. The gullies, chawls, cramped rooms, and railway tracks created by Zoya Akhtar and Suzanne Caplan Merwanji replicate the slum of Dharavi. Murad’s house feels narrow, suffocating, just like the houses in the slum. The world does not exaggerate his struggle; it normalises it, which makes his desire to break out feel urgent and believable.

Perhaps the problem is not exaggeration or realism at all. Maybe we have just confused realism with truth, and spectacle with dishonesty, when actually, honesty lies in the emotions translated and felt, nothing else.

If audiences accept talking lions because the emotions feel real, they can accept heightened, theatrical spaces in narratives if those spaces are emotionally justified. What breaks immersion is not exaggeration, but inconsistency when the visual world does not align with the characters’ inner lives and feelings.

Maybe cinema does not need to choose between realism and spectacle at all. Maybe it needs to choose coherence. To ask not whether a space looks real, but whether it feels honest.