You think you know Setsuko Hara.
I discovered the Japanese actress the same way, I bet, that a lot of you did: through the works of her friend, and favourite director, Yasujiro Ozu. Ozu’s ‘Noriko Trilogy’—so-called because all three films starred Hara as a woman named Noriko—are considered among his best work. Given Ozu’s stature, that makes them three of the best films ever made.
Hara worked for other directors, of course, but I’d never seen an example. And until I did, I didn’t realize how wholly the actress and the Noriko character were merged in my mind. It wasn’t simply Noriko who possessed that infinite patience, that commitment to self-sacrifice, that smile of steel—those were, for me, Hara’s traits too. And that made Repast, a major work by director Mikio Naruse, starring Hara, revelatory for me in a way that it might not be for everybody. Here, for the first time, I saw Hara look… grumpy. That was big.
