Ami, Yasin Ar Amar Madhubala (The Voyeurs)

2008. India. Written and directed by Buddhadeb Dasgupta. With Prosenjit Chatterjee, Sameera Reddy, Amitav Bhattacharya. Internationally acclaimed Bengali filmmaker Dasgupta, whose Memories of the Mist was a highlight of the MoMA exhibition India Now in 2007, returns with a slyly ironic and poignant study of urban anxiety, repressed desire, and voyeurism. In this masterfully told drama, filled with elements of magic realism, a naïve young man relocates from his small village to the teeming, cosmopolitan city of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), where he moves in with the only person he knows, a similarly innocent young man who installs surveillance cameras for a living. When they begin spying on a beautiful young dancer who moves in next door (played by popular Bollywood actress Sameera Reddy), their lives change in unsettling ways. In Bengali; English subtitles. 107 min.