The trailer for Rohan Parshuram Kanawade’s Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) opens with a disarmingly simple dialogue. Anand’s (Bhushaan Manoj) mother (Jayshri Jagtap) says, “You should have changed the black shirt, Anand. I’ve told you a thousand times, it isn’t accepted in our community.” The silence lingers in the air for a second, before Anand answers, letting the audience read in between the lines. Not everything needs to be said when queerness sits in the picture. This moment epitomises how this Sundance-winning film unfolds—in the glorious, still, in-betweens.
From its radiant, lingering frames, you might expect Sabar Bonda to be a prosaic queer romance, but it softly ruptures this expectation. It’s a film that explores the time of mourning Rohan experienced when he travelled back to his ancestral village after his father passed away. It is not fully autobiographical however. In the film, Anand reconnects with his “khas mitr”, Balya (Suraaj Suman). What then follows is a portrait of rituals, mourning, romance, parental relationships, and the delicate tension between expectations and queer reality in rural Maharashtra.
Rohan balances these complexities with a simplicity that hasn’t been seen in Indian cinema in very long.
Perhaps that is because he isn’t a traditional filmmaker in any sense. His website describes how he grew up in a one room house in Mumbai’s slums with a father who is a chauffeur and mother who is a homemaker. An interior designer by background, this is his debut feature. He has previously made short films, like U Ushacha—which won him the Satyajit Ray Short Film Award at London Indian Film Festival 2019. I chat with him about this tender movie.
In some ways, Balya is a very soft and gentle man. That is rare. How did you approach his characterisation, and that of others in the film?
Things like characterisation are not necessarily part of my process. When I started making films, everything was intuitive, and it’s still the same. I might not do what other filmmakers do. When I was thinking about the story, I thought of the people I’m writing about, and my experiences with them. I was able to create this world authentically because it is inspired by my memories and experiences. Anand is supported by his parents to remain unmarried because he is out to his parents—but why does Balya stay unmarried? For this, I got inspired by the lives and social realities of people around me—my cousins, the people in our village I used to frequently visit from Mumbai. My mother told me that farmers back home are having trouble getting married, apparently. That they are protesting because of that in rural Maharashtra too. So the gay guys in farmer communities are able to stay single. That is what I borrowed for Balya. And the people in our village are inherently sweet, they live rich lives. For example—the dialogue where Anand’s mum says something on the lines of “Kadhi kadhi bolat ja majhya barobar” [speak to me sometimes] comes from the script translator’s conversation with his mother. There is also some really potent advice that Anand’s father gives him in the film. That was something my 65-year old queer friend heard from his father when his partner was murdered. These are parts of what I borrowed for my characters.
There is a lot of stillness in the way the camera frames the dynamic between mother and son. Why was that dynamic important for you to capture like that?
The story was brewing in my head for years. The treatment for it also started coming to me in that period. The relationship between Anand and his mum is partly inspired by my partner’s relationship with his mum. We lost her to cancer a year ago, but I remember travelling to Allahabad with my partner and his mother for a 12-day trip, and seeing their very talkative and affectionate dynamic. I don’t share that with my mother, but this film allowed me to create characters and moments that I could not experience in my [real] life. The film is about this period of grieving in my village—I was surrounded by stillness. Compositionally, I wanted it to look like old photographs. The long takes also let my actors give more. There were no camera tricks. Drawing on my background as an interior designer, I also hand drew every frame that my DOP tried to capture exactly as is. All of that helped me create this, and get the team on the same page.
Did you write this with an international audience in mind?
Not necessarily. I don’t want to assume that any of my audience understands everything. Our audiences are no longer bound to India, so I wanted to work around that. I always knew I wanted my films to be globally viewed. So I had to reverse engineer that. This is a very specific culture and place I’m taking them to—even in India, rituals and cultures change every 20 kilometres. For example, I had a debate with a friend about a particular scene where the Brahmin says “The crow has touched the pinda [a ball of rice offered to ancestors or those who have passed], your father has gained mukti [salvation] ”. He was of the opinion that need not be said because it was obvious, but I wanted to make sure it was clear to someone whose culture this is not a part of. I wanted everyone watching to feel like they were a part of this film, but not something that is constantly expository. You have to do it while writing so you don’t alienate audiences.
Has the film reached the village it was made in? If so, how have they responded to it?
This was discussed in our publicity meetings. That other filmmakers have done this [shown their movies in the villages they were shot in]—like Fandry or Sairat and that made big news. But Sabar Bonda is about queerness, not caste. They aren’t showing what Sabar Bonda is showing. I don’t know how people would react. We didn’t want to risk anything pre-release, or complicate this journey before it releases. Even post release, it’s been hard for us to get screens in that area. We are working on doing a private screening for them there.
But, when I made U Ushacha—a movie about a single mother who starts exploring her same sex attraction, we didn’t tell the villagers while we were shooting, but invited them to the cast and crew screening. They came in a bus to Mumbai, and saw the movie. We were not sure how they would react. The village’s school principal said everyone loved the movie so much. That when it was being made, no one in the village could grasp what was happening, but seeing it now had really moved them, and that they’d like to bring it to the village so everyone can see it.
I think it was because I didn’t dramatise it. I depicted it with a sense of happiness—where she wasn’t a victim. She was exploring her sexuality without guilt. She was seeking happiness; and then the audience was on board with her on her journey to find that with another woman. So I think it’s all about how you tell that story. We are still thinking about what is the right time to show this movie in the village though.
I was curious to know this because there is a perception that queerness can’t exist in small towns. But when you make movies, does it reflect on ground?
Things are changing in villages too. I know two guys in the villages around where we shot—where two young farmers have come out to their parents, and these parents have accepted them. No one talks about it, however. But no one talks about that—because most filmmakers want drama. I was so scared when I decided to come out. Most films have shown only that struggle. I’ve never seen a story that just gave its queer characters acceptance. So when I came out, my parents just said “Oh, it’s okay, don’t get married. It’s just important that you know about yourself”, I was shocked. I understand that it is still a struggle for many people, but it wasn’t in my case, and I haven’t seen this side.
I feel like sexuality is a part of life–our parents’ generation also knows it, they aren’t unaware. A lot of people told me that queer lives are thriving in villages—that because some of them don’t even know how to approach women, they gravitate towards men, and it’s seen as very normal. Some effeminate gay men I have spoken to say they have never even been bullied for this. There’s so many experiences like these, but certain generalised depictions are tiring.
What did you choose to leave out of the film and why?
Coming out, drama, and the struggle around sexuality, and a tragic end. Many films have done that, and I’m a bit tired of that. You’ll see in my film that an uneducated mother is able to accept her queer child.
My film starts after that acceptance.
Some people even suggested that I should let Anand and Balya separate. I didn’t want that tragic ending either. There is already this perception that you are doomed because you are queer. I don’t want to further that. That is not the reality. I found my partner, we all find our partners. It is not about having a full happy ending—but an optimistic ending. Someone said on Letterboxd “I don’t think Balya is going to love the city”. But the fact that they could take the step to explore their relationship is important. It was what my partner did too—he moved from Bangalore to Mumbai after we started seeing each other.
Also, it didn’t strike me until someone pointed it out. There is a sequence where Anand and Balya embrace each other by the riverside. My friends watched that part and said they almost expected them to get caught, and something tragic happens to them after. This was the drama we have been conditioned to accept—but it just doesn’t come in my movie. Because rural areas are so quiet and a lot goes unnoticed. There is no struggle for “place” like in urban spaces.
What is your relationship with the term queer cinema?
I feel like sexuality is a part of life, not life, and I want to show that. That if we decentre sexuality in our stories, we will be able to normalise ourselves. The feeling of loving someone is not different for queer people than it is for heterosexual people. I want to show characters more than their struggle with sexuality. So many people that watched Sabar Bonda said it felt like it wasn’t a queer film, it was so much more than that. So only when we move past the questions of “How did you find out about yourself, when did you come out”, will the narratives move past the needle. That’s my relationship with queer cinema.
What are your thoughts about the reception of the film after release? Has anything stood out to you?
The response has been beyond my imagination. In some parts like Mumbai and Pune, the film is houseful—even though the shows are in the afternoon, on weekdays. A lot of non-Marathi audience is watching this movie. I think it shows that if your film is really good, people will come for it, irrespective of the language barrier. Many people have even watched the film more than once—some even thrice already. The most surprising part for me has been hearing that when the movie is over and even after the credits are done rolling, some people are just sitting in their seats, quietly, not moving. I didn’t expect something like that to happen. Both my main leads, Bhushaan and Suraaj went to such a screening, and noticed it too. I wish I get to experience that in a screening myself too.
If you didn’t have any constraints of budget, or any other hurdles—what would your dream project look like?
I’m actually putting more restrictions on myself. When you get a lot of freedom, you kind of are at a loss for what to do too. Look at Iranian cinema—it had to rise above restrictions and censorship to create stories that were so powerful. I think, sometimes, limitations enable us to create stories that stand out. I am telling myself there are things I won’t do to make my next film so I can weave a very different story.
With Sabar Bonda, some budgetary restrictions proved difficult. For example, global warming has made it hard to shoot outdoors—we actually didn’t find a single cactus pear in the villages. They were abundant before, but we had to import ours from Gujarat—and that requires support. I would like to have a budget to get the production quality to a certain level with my stories. After all that, if I end up making a film with dinosaurs, maybe then I will need a bigger budget for other things.
A short version of this interview was first published in Melbourne International Film Festival’s blog, MIFF Revue, for this year’s Critics Campus.
Image Credits: Mat Hayward (Getty Images)