Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) | 2025 Sundance Film Festival Review

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Ripe Fruits: Kanawade Taps the Bittersweet Rind of Going Home Again

Rohan Parashuram Kanawade Cactus Pears ReviewWhile there’s been an uptick in contemporary LGBTQ+ films from India over the past two decades, many have maintained a low international profile with the exception of a few select titles. Auteur fare, such as Deepa Mehta’s exceptional 1996 title Fire, remains nearly unrivaled in its bravura, while the 2020 restoration of India’s first queer film, Badnam Basti (1971), foments the ongoing recuperative legacy of watershed moments. With his semi-autobiographical narrative debut, Cactus Pears, Rohan Parashuram Kanawade arrives with a subtle and profound new entry in queer independent Indian cinema, girded by the validation of high profile film festival circuit veneration. Its narrative foundation is hewn through downcast simplicity as a thirty-year-old gay man must return to his village to attend the ten-day-long funeral rites of his recently deceased father. While it’s true one can’t ever really go home again, Kanawade formulates a scenario where one’s own fear-based resistance might sometimes sabotage a potential reconciliation with the past.

Anand (Bhushaan Manoj), a closeted gay man, returns to his childhood home in rural West India to grieve his recently deceased father. But his announcement to curtail the proscribed mourning period aggravates already strained relationships. His mother Suman (Jayshri Jagtap) responds to his attendance plans with a prickly barb, which sets a stern, reproachful tone, shared by an extended family who are openly dismayed by his inappropriate garb. Grumblings about his status as a single man furthers the tension and Anand seems to shut down, isolating in his parents’ home. But he reunites with Balya (Suraaj Suman), a childhood friend who now ekes out a living selling milk, his family having sold off their own farmland long ago. Balya’s economic status has assisted him in avoiding an arranged marriage, until now, it seems. Through their tentative but tenderly coded interactions it’s clear they were lovers during their formative years, now comparing notes about ‘special friends’ in their current climes. Neither of them are satisfied intimately or romantically and the embers of their past flame ignite as the days pass by, with Balya announcing his plans to move into Anand’s Mumbai apartment.

There’s a constant sense of achy longing throughout Cactus Pears, so named after a now-rare fruit from the region the two men enjoyed as youngsters. Balya gifts Anand with some of these as a surprise, the sweet flesh of the fruit a metaphorical representation and extension of himself. What’s perhaps most interesting is how Kanawade constructs a formidable sense of isolation for both men despite their diametrically opposed lives in rural and urban environments. For different reasons, the ability for intimacy between two men to develop seems nearly impossible, thanks to the rigid restrictions of village life and the oversaturation of the city. Both situations result in the commodification of bodies in the pursuit of satisfying biological desires. But it seems there’s no space for romantic love. Or is there? “Special friends never last,” Anand remarks on his dating life in the city. It would appear he’s had to survive on the escape provided by married, closeted men who utilize Anand as a quick fix for their own repressed desires. But sometimes we fall into the trap of accepting the kind of limited care we’ve been conditioned to believe we deserve.

What’s most touching about Cactus Pears beyond the intimate and physical rekindling between Anand and Balya are the quiet moments Anand shares with his mother, Suman. It would appear Anand was closer to his father, and the death of a brother seems to haunt the family, considering both parents knew the truth about their only surviving son’s sexuality. But through a pair of quiet conversations, mother and son share a deeper understanding and affection for one another than perhaps either realized. This is further bolstered by Anand visiting his maternal grandfather, who relays a random memory regarding how his father decided upon marrying Suman. Like the titular fruit, it relates, symbolically, to how we provide sustenance for loved ones.

If the narrative’s mechanisms feel familiar, Kanawade spends his time carefully constructing the reawakening of a past connection that circumstances forbade. DP Vikas Urs focuses on their growing closeness as their desensitization wanes and both men open up to one another. There’s a spiritual reckoning for Anand as he says goodbye to the memory of his father, as well as a sensuous one in an arguably precarious future with Balya. In essence, Cactus Pears is about taking the time to search for meaningful fulfillment, which means not holding your discoveries hostage to a future no one can predict.

Reviewed on January 27th at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival (41st edition) – World Cinema Dramatic Competition section. 112 mins.

★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆

Nicholas Bell
Nicholas Bell
Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), FIPRESCI, the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2023: The Beast (Bonello) Poor Things (Lanthimos), Master Gardener (Schrader). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.

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