Sabar Bonda movie review: A tender, affecting film told with warmth, sensitivity

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‘Sabar Bonda’ has a couple of firsts to its credit. It is self-taught filmmaker Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s debut feature, and the first Marathi film chosen to screen at the Sundance Film Festival, whose 41st edition is currently underway.

Kanawade combines the experience of living with his queer identity, and a visit to his village under similar circumstances, to form the basis of the film, which is unusual not just because it shows same-sex relationships in rural India, but also in the way it trains a gentle lens on masculinity: what do you do with men who do not conform to gender norms, and how do you deal with, if not open hostility, then certainly active suspicion?

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At one point, a character comes up holding a couple of cactus pears, prickly on the outside, vivid red pulp on the inside, and instantly it becomes a real thing and a metaphor, speaking to the toughness that traditionally-raised men have to wear as a shield, to nurture and protect the gentleness that lies within.

In a film which could have turned grim, Kanawade adds in a touch of mordant humour in some of the encounters he has with his relatives. Anand, born and brought up in the urban clamour of a Mumbai slum, manages to catch up with his childhood friend Balya (Suraaj Suman), and right from that first encounter you can see him shedding off the skin that he uses as protective veneer. Anand and Balya knew who they were even as children: in one of the most moving scenes in the film, knowing maternal memory is used as a revelatory device.

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In that sequence, in which Anand has his head in his mother’s lap, both sheltering from the insistent gaze of the extended family, we know that the latter has known who Anand is, perhaps even before he himself did. Parents can be wise and wonderful, and not all coming out has to be painful.

The thing between Anand and Balya, the one who got left behind, is explored beautifully: Kanawade frames their drawing closer in the spaces they can find — cowsheds, terraces, in the fields, under the trees — their awareness of each other a tangible, frangible feeling. It makes for a tender, affecting film, and gives us a filmmaker to watch out for.

Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) movie cast: Bhushaan Manoj, Suraaj Suman
Sabar Bonda movie director: Rohan Parashuram Kanawade
Sabar Bonda movie rating: 4 stars