When Grief Erodes Prejudice in ‘Cactus Pears’
A few weeks ago, the Indian Film Festival in Prague screened a number of movies from the country’s wide berth of cinematic output: new releases Cocktail 2 and vampire comedy Thamma were shown alongside Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s certified classic Rang de Basanti (2006), illustrating the fascinating array of visual culture that the Embassy of India was willing to offer financial support to. All the films were in Hindi, except for one: Rohan Kanawade’s Cactus Pears / Sabar Bonda, a queer, Marathi-language indie that first premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize (making it the first Indian film to do so).
Cactus Pears was shown in India in September of last year and had a limited theatrical run in the US in November via Strand Releasing. However, unlike other queer films of its ilk, I do not believe this movie has yet had its day in the sun. So I press harder for its virality.
This is the debut of filmmaker Kanawade, a gay man who grew up in a lower-class family in Mumbai, Maharashtra with no veritable links to the film industry. According to an interview with Film at Lincoln Center, once he’d gotten access to a proper library, he sought inspiration from Abbas Kiarostami, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Nuri Bilge Ceylon. Such influences show through clearly in the semi-autobiographical feature debut, which tells the story of Anand (Bhushaan Manoj), a man who returns home to his village after his father dies in order to perform the proper mourning rites. His mother knows he is queer, and more or less accepts this, as he is able to make his own fortune in the city. However, when Anand reacquaints with another friend from childhood, Balya (Suraaj Suman) who harbors the same predicament – but more financial and social burden – his perception of his own situation changes.
The best descriptor for this movie is “gentle”. There is hardly any violent clamor around the protagonist, who is understandably withdrawn over the death of his father, despite some extrafamilial pressure for him to marry. His mother agrees to go along with the story that he had his heart broken by a woman and cannot move on, even though the local custom demands that he find a wife within a certain time frame after his father’s passing. Meanwhile, Anand’s friend – and ultimately his lover – is openly dismissed by his parents. Ever since their family sold their farm to support his sister’s marriage, he must do odd jobs to make ends meet.
Anand’s return to the village is so dictated by tradition as to be routine, despite its tragedy, while Balya wafts away the days, not ever expecting a prince to come. Naturally, through common tongue and geography, they find solace in one another. Anand’s transformation is not just emotional but physical – the Hindu funeral ritual demands that he shave all his hair. The end result is startling, but also like a breath of fresh air. Once the ten days of adhering by rural prescription have passed, he is open to the possibility of granting Balya that same chance he created for himself. It is a beautiful conclusion to a film about loss.
In Anand’s family’s faith, reincarnation is possible, and through the act of placing a dish on a floor and reading whatever tracks have landed on it, the women around him perceive his father to have been rebirthed as a bird. The father always respected Anand’s way of living in his company, even though his relatives dare to say otherwise. What other animalistic symbol is as liberated as a bird?
Through his grief, Anand achieves both a serenity and a “head-of-home” responsibility that permit him to embrace happiness through untraditional means. Though Balya’s attempt to flee his upbringing could be portrayed as desperate in any other storyteller’s hands, Kanawade ensures that the intimacy these men have experienced together does not morph into some unsavory, Call Me By Your Name-esque power dynamic. Anand has instead developed the characteristic resilience of those who undergo tragedy, which empowers him to welcome Balya, who supported him through it all, into the next stage of his life. Whether or not they stay together in the long run, their links have been profoundly forged.
Cactus Pears is available on VOD and DVD.
-Lydia
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