orthodoxies pry,
knit as always. “Special
friend “will cheat me open
A queer Marathi-language romantic drama with the spotty, lingering emotional punctuation if not always the verbal pithiness of a haiku, Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s narrative debut”Patience(“ Cactus Pears ”) brings to earth its gay protagonist’s existential limbo by resorting to an ever-reliable inciting incident: the death of the patriarch, followed by a period of culturally specific mourning.
Anand (Bhushaan Manoj), a thirty-year-old soft-spoken call center worker living in Mumbai, has only come out to his parents, not to his extended family in his ancestral village in the state of Maharashtra to which he returns for an ordinary ten days of mourning. That exception in itself is remarkable. Parent cash is Destination for many LGBTQIA+ movie plotsalthough recent queer cinema seems to have veered away from the trope. In the South Asian context, and particularly in a rural, agrarian, Middle India, where older relatives and aunt figures remain keen arbiters of the institution of marriage, for a story beginning with the protagonist’s mother, played with disarming transparency by Jayshri Jagtap, In Cahoots with son to maintain his integrity and defend his choice not to marry, is surprising – and rare.
The powerful mother-son bond is one of two mood slices of intimacy that Kanawade evokes in “Sabar Bonda,” a film speckled with traits of sensuality and moments of belated, barrel-shaped embraces, shot decisively with unapologetic realism or transportive reverie, and framed by cinematographer Vikas Urs either in tender wides or in extreme close-ups of faces geometrically arranged in unexpected corners of the screen.
The other bond is one that the story is resolutely building, between Anand and Balya (a brilliant Suraaj Suman), his estranged childhood friend, now a farm hand and goat herder who stayed back in the village, who is not out in his family, and has also cut off pressure to marry. The two men become transwomen, as Anand follows Balya and his goats through long lazy days and takes a break from visiting relatives. Together they muse about the reduced number of cactus pear plants (elsewhere known as prickly pear) in the region, a beloved bygone mango tree, and the general transition of the countryside, while sharing their armory of excuses, some cheeky, for remaining unmarried.
‘Unmarried Men’ is arguably a new category of marginalization being explored in the Indian film canon. In South Asia, it is usually the girl child who represents the burden on her family, be it via the vice of dowry, the curse of being lower caste, or the related boon of education. “Sabar Bonda” is commendable in the way it shows the unique silent pains carried by many queer men who, despite their male privilege, have to struggle to remain unmatchable (same-sex marriage is illegal in India), not to be infantilized and to realize to realize Relationships longer lasting than quick secret sex.
According to the ideology that dominates the world of cinema, Anand and Balya’s ilk might best hope to be ‘Khaas Mitra’, translated as ‘special friends’, but Kanawade tings the term with a certain angst, and Manoj embodies it with mini trembles leaping leaping off his slender body like unpleasant radio waves. The “Khaas Mitra” program is met with curiosity from some quarters and would be of safe pariah status from others. Just as the countryside is cut off from native flora and female fetuses, as Balya observes with macabre commonality (referring to high rates of female infanticide), the dream of a life spent with special friend is an impoverishment reimagined as a marginal gain by the marginalized .
“Sabar Bonda” does not preach the ideal of a full, happy love life and may not even care about Western aka colonialist ideas of self-actualization. What it does well is allow glimpses of sadness and incompleteness in the interstices of the Poetic Candids. Its most exciting scenes feel like suspended, painterly vignettes—reminiscent of the haiku’s stop and tilt—even as its narrative stitches ten days of chronological time.
Sadness, yet there is levity, directness, even eroticism. It’s in these moments that one wishes the film transitioned longer, or at least transitioned in and out more smoothly, just like “call me by your name” may have inspired how Kanawade approaches characterization. Balya, more secure in his freelance peasant status, hits a pillow to peek through Anand and procure some of his friend’s newfound doubts about his estranged father’s acceptance of his queerness. It is Balya who perceives how Anand’s luscious unruly locks yearn for caress.
A heartbreaking early shot of Anand shaking his haunches before the funeral pyre is what Balya interprets as an invitation to his friend to relax under the shade of childhood trees. Balya may be the more active character, but Anand returns to save Balya. Away from prying eyes, these single men transcend the boundaries of special friends: for now, they become unmarked dreamers roaming the pastures.
A challenge that arises when a film luxuriates in its scenes of intimacy follows through the introduction of narrative conflicts. Anand apparently had a brother who died a long time ago. He also had a lover in the city who stopped responding to his texts when he got married. In most stories, these clashes would form discrete subplots. While “Sabar Bonda” succeeds in grafting an overarching arc of grief on its protagonist — the closing conversation with the opening poignant — it feels strangely a bit busy, after too many scenes of curious relatable banter. Like many recent international festival films from Asia and MENA, this film cycled through multiple labs and co-production markets, so its somewhat topsy-turvy identity as chatty social drama versus queer poetry film is not unexpected.
Kanawade’s assured debut centers gay men and defiantly accepting parents in a countryside where grief is more than a short-lived assortment of devastating traditional practices and contradictory expectations. The film’s honesty, whether loquacious or laconic, sears even more in the absence of a point. Its observational ethos is remarkable given its quasi-autobiographical nature.
The filmmakers prepare us by removing the thorns from the cactus pear and slicing opens the fruit across its center. They ask us to remember the faces of the men who will bite the flesh. Befriending them even, as respite from their various sorrows can disappear quickly in the lows of a perpetually dry landscape.
Rating: B
“Sabar Bonda” premiere at 2025 Sundance Film festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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