There are a lot of professions in India that fail to merit any attention primarily because they are unpopular in the eyes of the multitude. The popular opinion here hunts for either doctors or engineers. Then comes the creative fronts like actors, directors, and writers. You will often come across movies reflecting their lives. When they want to dissect the topic of poverty, studios will depict the lives of farmers, laborers, or even strugglers trying to make ends meet. In a flurry of such conventions, Sherni movie roars its way to the top as a rarity.
The flick chooses the life of a forest official to depict the nitty-gritty of the profession. To top that all, it reeks of how corruption is at the very core of literally every job in India. It is, in fact, very similar to Newton movie in that respect. If you take away the backdrop on which it is built, the theme is very much similar. Being a rightful woman in a world of corrupt men simply goes on to add another layer of problem for our protagonist, Vidya Vincent (Vidya Balan).
The title is a playful play of words. Literally speaking, Sherni means tigress on which the movie revolves around. It is based on a true story that happened with Avni the tigress. But the moniker wants you to know figuratively that it is also what the protagonist’s character is like. The fate of both the tigresses is tied up by the leash of politics. They seem fierce within their circles but they are powerless in front of the men who call the shots. It’s an epigram that cradles an irony and takes away the very girth of what the word symbolizes.
Direction of Movie Sherni
Sherni movie comes from the minds of Newton, Amit Masurkar, the director who had aced satire in his previous work. Sherni feels to have been written in a way that mirrors Newton a lot. The creation of an upright official who is struggling to find her ground amongst the corrupt kind of brings his previous work to mind.
You can see how much homework has been done in terms of the tiger story that had gotten enough media coverage to have blown out of proportion. While there was a world trying to save the tigress under the radar of environmental conversation, there is this whole other world trying to avenge their fallen. When the law says that a tiger has gone rogue, has become a man-eater, does it still deserve the same fate as that of a human? Should the lives of wild animals be governed by human laws in the first place?
The subject of the matter makes you ponder the quintessential question – When it comes to wild animals, who is the hunter, and who remains the hunted?
Some dispensable things that don’t go unnoticed, however, are the CGI tiger that the movie tries to feed the audience and some scenes that we could have lived without. It amazes me how we are still unable to create a proper authentic tiger for a scene that doesn’t look out of order. Repetitive filler shots of ants on tree trunks trying to display nature, kind of end up becoming overused. I mean there is so much lurking in the forest. How hard is it to hire a wildlife photographer to get some authentic rolls going?
Being an Animal in a World of Men
Amit takes you on an adventure through the eyes of a forest official who loves her job, who is trying to do the right thing but ends up being helpless against authoritative commands who try to stop her from doing her job. The current political scenario is very much reflected in the way things get handled. When something blows out of proportion, and the media gets involved, that’s when things kind of expedite, and a decision gets taken. Then again it is not necessary that the rushed decision is always the right one.
Sherni perches on such a tree trunk and ends up suffering the same fate if it were to exist in a world where its natural instincts are completely ignored. You cannot be a tigress in a man’s world. Mankind roars back at her and punishes her for being an animal.
Mankind continues to prove how filthy it is, by performing the ugliest of acts. The first and foremost task that we did was taking away everything beautiful and behaving as if we were the rightful owner of this planet,
Up until now, we pondered if it was the worst thing being a woman in a man’s world, but Sherni movie makes a mockery of the fact you thought it was okay to be an animal in a world of men. Neither remains okay, and Sherni proves how superfluous it is to try and change that.
Pintoo Bhaiya by Sharat Saxena
How often have you come across such people – When you are trying to do the right thing, there’s always one incessantly working in the exact opposite direction. Contrasting ideologies are everywhere. The fact that they fail to see your mindset is ever so frustrating because they have been tuned that way, marred by experiences, and fabricated like an unbreakable rock. Nothing you say or do would ever make them understand your point of view. Pintoo Bhaiya is one such character.
He is that quintessential element in the tale who is bent on taking things into his own hand. Pintoo Bhaiya is a hunter who is after the life of the tigress. He is the general people consensus, uneducated and emotional, ready to take action because they have had enough. He is a product of their despair. When the chips are down, people always go for the last straw.
The character Pintoo Bhaiya, aced to perfection by Sharat Saxena, since you genuinely end up hating that guy for there is something in his daftness, a sense of recalcitrance to work on his orders. Under the radar of experience, he believes he is allowed to get away with everything. Sharat plays a very typical Indian man who refuses to listen to anybody but himself for he believes he could never be wrong. Even if he could be, he would leave no stones unturned to make sure his cover doesn’t get blown.
Bansilal Bansal by Brijendra Kala
Almost all of the characters in Sherni movie are people you would generally end up meeting more than once in your life, if you live in India. Brijendra Kala plays a man whose hand is tied when it comes to confronting people. He is willing to give up everything he ever stood for, to save his ass. Even though there are righteous people, when things go south, they are the first ones to give up on their beliefs.
Bansilal Bansal brings that comic element to the story through his mannerisms on how people at his authority often talk. People at positions that could actually bring change are generally very submissive. Bansal is one such coward. Vidya fails to understand it.
Hassan Noorani by Vijay Raaz in Movie Sherni
It is very unusual for Vijay Raaz to pick such roles. But he has been slogging for so long with all sorts of roles, that it is commendable to see him under the skin of Hassan Noorani, a teacher who is in love with nature. Being so close to the forest his natural focus is to impart real education to the people who actually need it. It is the most fun part of his life.
He works akin to a reflection of Vidya’s diligence. Carrying the same amount of allegiance to the cause, Hassan is a man who doesn’t go unnoticed, because he remains a man who tried to fight. That’s so rare in today’s world of quitters.
Neeraj Kabi as Akhil Nangia
I would forever be in awe of this man. I like how Neeraj Kabi perches himself up in good scripts. If you try to look back you will always find him in a powerful role, or is it because of his acting prowess, that the role ends up standing out?
In Sherni, he plays Akhil Nangia, an exemplary force that people look up to. Already widely popular and most resorted to, Akhil is a hero in the forest world. There is a reason he has been chosen in the movie, and that is to read the disappointment on Vidya’s face when she finds out that the person whom everyone believed, she believed to be a hero was in fact nothing but an insignificant opportunist.
He has been built up in the entire Sherni movie for that one penultimate disdain. When the time comes it is totally worth it, for Neeraj always stays in the character and continues to remain so to redress any kind of insult.
Vidya – The Protagonist (Sherni) of the Movie?
Lastly, I come to Vidya Vincent. Who is she? She reminds me a lot of Newton for she was always doing the right thing, but failing miserably at it.
She started out as a hero, but the very definition of Indian movies is changing thanks to good directors like Amit. We are no longer embracing the age-old mindset of a hero walking in and making everything better. No, we are now making thought-provoking movies. Something that makes you angry by watching all the injustice.
We are now leaving things as how they are. Leaving things be, that’s the new approach. Watching all the ugliness, does that make your blood curdle? There was no hero, will you become the hero? Can you bring the change? Sherni leaves things at that.
Because Sherni movie ends on a high note giving us a brazen outlook on how nothing ever changes. The same dialogues get repeated. People whom we thought were loyal to their work, end up behaving the same way they have been attuned to behave.
Vidya was never the protagonist of the tale. She was a mere observer. Merely a pair of eyes that helps us see the events that might have unfolded with the poor tigress Avni that was hunted down and killed. You see everything happen with those eyes and you can’t help but shut them, the way Vidya is compelled to move on in her life. Failing to bring change, accepting defeat at the same time coming to terms with the fact that nothing can change.
Sherni
Pros
- Great Performances by the Cast
- Brilliantly Crafted Plot
Cons
- Not for Everybody
- Tiger CGI
