‘Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears)’ Review: A Tender Queer Indian Drama Born of Grief
“Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears),” the semi-autobiographical feature debut of director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, is a gentle slow-burn that occasionally becomes electric. A rural gay story that begins in a state of mourning and melancholy, it eventually takes on radiant form, with emotional complexities born out of characters walking around the truth, if only because euphemisms are the only language they have.
The Marathi-language drama is, first and foremost, a film of tradition, and the way even mundane cultural norms can become iron bars: stack enough of them side by side, and what you have is a prison. We first meet Anand (Bhushaan Manoj), a single Mumbai call-center employee in his early thirties, at the hospital where his ailing father takes a turn for the worse. Before he and his mother (Jayshri Jagtap) have time to process their loss, procedural funeral demands lead them back to their rural village for a ten-day period of mourning. Anand is reluctant to stay the entire time. His mother, while upset, seems to understand why, though we’re only given a hint when she advises him to tell people he’s waiting to find the right girl before settling down, since his family is wont to ask.
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The logistics of grief create an emotional haze around Anand, which Manoj fashions into an invisible weighted blanket in his performance. He hunches over in every scene, his hair disheveled and his eyes weary from an exhaustion that, while caused by his father’s passing, feels as though it’s been part of him for decades. This impeccable turn tells us all we need to know about Anand, as the movie fills in the gaps through subtle gestures and changes in mood, like when he crosses paths with his old childhood friend Balya (Suraaj Suman).
Balya, a farmer’s son and also un-married, is much more self-assured than Anand, but the two immediately reconnect; for once, Anand doesn’t seem bothered by his ancestral home. As they reminisce and discuss the local topography — the fruits they remember sharing, and old trees that have been cut down — a picture of their history emerges, though it remains intentionally obfuscated.
Whatever history they shared, and whether or not Anand fully remembers each detail, their presence here and now is hyper-specific, a camaraderie born of their shared economic circumstances, and the vectors of their hidden queerness, lower caste and mandatory, traditional heterosexuality (both men are frequently goaded into marrying women they’ve never met). The recent tumult in Anand’s life sends him deeper into the closet, but it paradoxically leaves him more vulnerable in the process. Tthe more time they spend together, the alluring “Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears)” becomes.
In his highly photographic 4:3 frame (with picturesque, rounded edges), Kanawade tenderly unfurls each scene with intentionally languid rhythms, and extended beats between dialogue. The camera lingers during these moments — made wistful by the music of wind caressing the tree leaves, and by Vikas Urs’ gorgeous landscape cinematography — as the actors pore over each word, pause and emotion. The movie maintains this reserved tempo throughout its runtime; while this occasionally makes it repetitive, the visual construction is always precise. Relaxed medium shots allow for the actors’ physicalities to tell the story of their gradually growing comfort. At key moments, the camera punches in to tender exchanges of touch that are, at once, sudden and inevitable.
These moments are exhilarating, though by their very nature, they’re few and far between. Before long, the question of what comes next — and whether Anand and Balya have a future — rears its ugly head. But the confrontation of these dilemmas is surprisingly withheld in its drama, and comes from a tender place. Each coded expression is laced with care, whether it’s Anand and Balya discussing their romantic histories (they ask each other if they have a “special friend”), or even Anand’s mother gently inquiring about Balya’s sexuality (“Does he also not want to marry?”), all but granting her son permission to live freely, despite sorrows old and new, in whatever small way he can.
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