Today February 23 2013 is 22nd Death Anniversary of Nutan
After seeing a Setsuko Hara film, the novelist Endo Shusaku wrote "We would sigh or let out a great breath from the depths of our hearts, for what we felt was precisely this: Can it be possible that there is such a woman in this world?"
In year 2012, I saw two Japanese films 'Late Spring', 1949 and 'Tokyo Story', 1954. Both masterpieces by Yasujiro Ozu, both starring Setsuko Hara.
Watching them was like reading G A Kulkarni's (जी ए कुलकर्णी) 'Kairi' ( कैरी) one more time. Such tenderness, such lyricality, such beauty, such simplicity and yet very little sentimentality...While I have known GA's story for more than thirty years, where was 'Tokyo Story'?
I am glad I did not 'meet' Ms. Hara at a more impressionable age unlike Ms. Nutan. If I had, I would have madly fallen in love with her, would have lost the sleep for a few days.
Ms. Hara's partnership with Mr. Ozu reminds me of Nutan's partnership with Bimal Roy.
Setsuko Hara, in Yasujiro Ozu's masterpiece 'Tokyo Story'
Photograph courtesy: the distributor of the film or the publisher of the film.
In Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anari, 1959
Image courtesy: Wikipedia
Ms. Hara foreswore the acting profession in 1963 and became a Greta Garbo-like figure. Nutan never did anything like that but she too remained an enigma for me.
They both- June borne- look stunning on B&W screen. While they are there, I look at nothing else. I also notice a touch of melancholy that goes with an incredible amount of beauty.
That's what makes them special.