'Sherdil The Pilibhit Saga' review: A brilliant Pankaj Tripathi saves this uneven film

If I did not know beforehand that 'Sherdil: The Pilibhit Saga' is indeed based on a true story, or rather stories, I probably would have scoffed at what transpires throughout the movie. Written and directed by National Award winner Srijit Mukherji, the plot of 'Sherdil' is often too ridiculous to follow.

But then, truth is often stranger than fiction. A few things that happen in our daily, quotidian lives would confound even the most prolific of human imaginations.

Starring Pankaj Tripathi as sarpanch Gangaram, the film is set in an unnamed village located at the edge of a tiger reserve. Beset by wild animals like boars and nilgai, who stampede through crops and destroy the only source of livelihood for the villagers, the place is unable to sustain itself and there are frequent deaths from starvation. Things are grim.

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Gangaram takes a trip to the city to complain to government officials, but to no avail. Then he spots a pamphlet in the office depicting the government's promise of Rs 10 lakh compensation to the family of a person who is killed by a tiger in an agricultural field.

To solve the troubles of his village, he takes matters into his own hands. He concocts an unhinged plan to sacrifice himself to a tiger by venturing into the wild, defying the protests of his wife (Sayani Gupta). He also leaves instructions to his friends to transfer his remains to a field, so that compensation would be ensured. The government's money might help the villagers survive, at least temporarily.

Mukherji's script does not move as much as leaps in-between moments of utter quietude. There are indulgent, stretched shots of Gangaram lost in the dense jungle, searching for the apex predator who remains elusive. The narrative is non-linear and switches between his amateur tracking of the big cat and his conversations with his family and other village elders.

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'Sherdil' balances its surrealist elements with themes as varied as institutional rot in Indian bureaucracy and the perpetual conflict between man vs nature.
Conserving ecosystems and letting endangered animals thrive in protected sanctuaries is undoubtedly necessary but at the cost of human life?

'Sherdil' does not always work. Sections of the film seem to have a disconnect at times and do not always watch like part of the whole. The time Gangaram spends in the jungle feels like a spinoff story of what is happening in human civilisation, such as it is.

What makes this bizarre mishmash work is Pankaj Tripathi. It would be unfair to call his craft effortless because it must really take a lot of effort, but he does make it look so. Not many would have played a preposterous character like Gangaram with such panache. In his hands, notwithstanding his hare-brained ideas, Gangaram feels like a living and breathing person and you will end up empathising with him.

Watch 'Sherdil: The Pilibhit Saga' for Pankaj Tripathi.