Beautifully tender in its construction, if slightly withholding, Cactus Pears gentle story of queer belonging is refreshing in its restraint.
A cactus pear is a prickly fruit commonly known as the “devil’s tongue” that grows sparsely in rural India. The fleshy red fruit inside is a sweet treat, but it can only be enjoyed after carefully removing the thorns and rough skin. An evocation of the sparse and secretive community for two lower-class gay Indian men in Rohan Kanawade’s feature debut Cactus Pears. The film is a triumph in its naturalistic storytelling, but struggles to hold the screen in its truly lighter moments.
While much of queer cinema hailing from India has tended to focus on upper-class experiences of queerness, there is a unique element to the rural farming-community slant à la God’s Own Country. Anand (Bhushaan Manoj) returns to his desolate Western Indian countryside home after leaving for Mumbai, for a ten-day mourning period following the loss of his pappa. Here, he rekindles a very close friendship with local farmer Balya (Suraaj Suman), which starts to form into a forbidden romance. With constant pressures of arranged marriage and familial obligations, the men must work out how to exist as themselves amongst grief and potential exile.
There is a consistent lack of melodrama or sensationalism in Kanawade’s script; instead, he opts for a largely static film built from lingering moments and tender conversations. A hand through hair or a simple embrace can feel thrilling, like years of desire suddenly bursting from its shackles. Kanawade has the same minimalist instincts as Ozu or the Dardenne brothers, and his cinematographer, Vikas Urs, adds a poetic beauty to the setting that complements the tone.
The central conflict is not built up to any big drama, and Anand’s contention with his own grief remains a strong central theme that can sometimes loosen the pressure on the romance for better and for worse. Instead of simple answers or overly saccharine declarations, the film drifts along like a lazy river. This is not always effective and bogs down some of the larger questions about the price of queerness in this setting, but that is not the film that Kanawade is interested in.
The two central leads, with backgrounds in theatre, give brilliantly nuanced performances; they both deliver unshowy, untheatrical portrayals of a fragile love. The film became the first Indian-language feature to win the World Cinema Dramatic Jury Prize, and while it may not have the heft to make a lasting impact, it is a miracle that it exists at all.
Since India’s first queer film, Badnam Basti, back in 1971, it is hard to remember much representation that has crossed the pond since, and that makes Cactus Pears worth the price of admission alone.
Cactus Pears is playing in cinemas nationwide from June 19.
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