Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) [2025]

Marathi filmmaker Rohan Kanawade’s tender and assured feature debut Sabar Bonda – weaved with intimate semi-autobiographical elements, memories and reflections – was an intensely muted expression of barely contained emotions. A contrapuntal evocation of grief and desire, two supposedly antithetical emotions, it also captured with subtlety what could’ve easily made for acrid parody, viz. the very Indian habit of family elders and “well-wishers” freely encroaching into private spaces and imparting unsolicited advices on life choices and marital decisions. Informed and shaped by the director’s own experiences upon his father’s demise a decade back, which necessitated a rather uncomfortable trip back from Bombay to his village that he hadn’t visited in many years, the film too opened with a similarly reluctant “homecoming” of Anand (Bhushaan Manoj), a 30-something gay man employed in a middle-income job in Bombay, to his ancestral village for performing his father’s last rites. Though he’d “come out” to his parents long back, his extended family members aren’t explicitly aware of his sexuality – though not fully unaware either – and consequently, along with instructions on how he should mourn, also doggedly badger him on marriage. However, contrary to societal expectations, he rekindles his intimacy with Balya (Suraaj Suman), an old friend who’s similarly single and a farmer who’s craving to escape from his rural environs. Naturalistically shot in soft colours, lyrical exteriors and framed in rounded edges like old photographs, Kanawade’s understated depiction of the fraught situation – and toned-down evocation of the homophobic atmosphere – was laced with undercurrents of defiance and a wish for the mundane. Alongside the two male leads, competently played by theatre actors who’ve known each other for long, Jayshri Jagtap was also memorable as Anand’s mother.

Director: Rohan Kanawade

Genre: Drama/Romantic Drama/Slice-of-Life

Language: Marathi

Country: India

Against the Tide [2023]

 Watching Sarvnik Kaur’s poignant and poetic documentary Against the Tide, one’s immediately transfixed by the exacting chronicling of her deeply moving subject, given the long and arduous shooting conditions that it must’ve entailed. However, what enthralled me most was her fluid blending of narrative storytelling – and therefore fictive elements – into the nonfiction form, and the formal elasticity accorded by that. It draws particularly fascinating parallels with fellow Jamia Millia Islamia alumnus Shaunak Sen’s masterful docu All That Breathes. The nuanced and evolving portraiture – over the course of a year – of two friends belonging to the marginalized Koli community and tirelessly striving to sustain their piscine vocations, brings to mind the powerful delineation of avian passions of the two ghettoized Muslim brothers. The story of this indigenous fishing community – whose lives and livelihoods have been pushed to the edges on account of displacements due to Mumbai’s reconstructed cityscape, and rapid depletion of stock exacerbated by industrialized fishing, climate change and marine pollution – is evoked through two fiercely intimate friends, albeit separated by class and pursuing contrasting routes. Rakesh lives an impoverished existence with his wife and mother, having opted to continue pursuing traditional fishing in the shallow seas in his frayed old boat with a seasonal crew; Ganesh has moved up the socioeconomic ladder and lives in the city with his wife, but is stuck in the vicious loop of raising capital to go deeper into the sea using expensive crew and equipment, and drowning in debt as a consequence. The brilliantly shot work, with its underlying theme of tradition vis-à-vis modernization, is hauntingly bookended by two births and imbued with stirring echoes through recurrent use of a plaintive dirge.

Director: Sarvnik Kaur

Genre: Documentary/Essay Film

Language: Marathi/Hindi

Country: India

The Disciple [2020]

 Chaitanya Tamhane’s The Disciple – the first Indian film since Mira Nair’s brilliant Monsoon Wedding to feature in the main competition at Venice – was an immersive delve into the austere, rigorous and cloistered world of Hindustani classical music… the years of training, discipline and self-sacrifice that it necessitates aside, a world defined by the tradition of passing down of skills from guru to protégé, and avowed reverence in return. The film’s titular disciple is Sharad (Aditya Modak), who’s thoroughly committed to attaining mastery in this field, even if that means life-long self-denial. Unfortunately, despite his monomaniac pursuit and extreme desire to achieve transcendental abilities, he may never be able to make the leap to greatness; and hence, his growing internal conflicts with seeping disillusionment, existential despair and puritanism become as onerous as the pursuit itself. In this journey over a number of years, from youth to approaching middle-age, three people represent his moral compass – Guruji (Arun Dravid), a barely recognized stalwart and his equanimous teacher, who represents the benchmark that he strives for; his father who too lacked the gift despite his enormous passion in this field; and Maai, an esoteric, forgotten maestro whose views about denouncing recognition and embracing extreme self-flagellation – captured through eerily captivating voice-overs – accompany terrific slo-mo long-take shots of Sharad riding on his bike through the Bombay streets. Modak and Dravid, interestingly, are both classically trained vocalists, and both brought startling authenticity to their roles; Modak was especially brilliant in capturing the seemingly unflappable protagonist’s obsessive quest that completely consumes his identity and being along the way. The film’s brooding tranquility and layered use of music – a prerequisite given the subject matter – were absorbing too.

 

 

 

 

 

Director: Chaitanya Tamhane

Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama

Language: Marathi

Country: India