Quite often when you hear (or read) people's opinions on classic films, especially Hollywood ones, you will frequently come across the phrase "they don't make them like they used to". Now invariably that sentiment is probably extremely accurate but recently (and especially following a couple of recent viewings) I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it entirely depends on who "they" refers to.

The other night I finally caught Ordinary People, it's a film that's been on my online rental queue a few times (but, in all honesty, never that high) and I've been intrigued to see what the geriatric movie professional's film society (that's the oscars to you) thought was so much better than Raging Bull. I'm really not sure what to say about it. It's in the middle of a long line of kid in therapy films (Equus, which preceeded it was probably better, Good Will Hunting certainly wasn't) but the big plus is a couple of very fine performances from Timothy Hutton and Judd Hirsch. Donald Sutherland was his usually solid self, but the disappointment was Mary Tyler Moore (who I've never seen in anything else) who was excessively mannered and I caught "acting" in every scene she was in. The film's utter character assassination of the mother leaves a bad taste in the mouth and the script is better on dialogue than anything else.

So what does that have to do with making them like they used to? I'm getting there, I just saw that one first and had to get it out of the way. Yesterday I caught Dual in the Sun, which is another one I've had on my online rental queue but never that high. David O. Selznick uber-fest, trying to do another Gone With the Wind but failing to realise he just didn't have the subject to merit it. Jennifer Jones is wildly miscast and her overwrought hand-wringing and diving on the floor left and right is indicative of a complete lack of control over her performance (Selznick got through 7 directors, including himself, and it shows in the overall tone). Nice seeing Gregory Peck playing the git for once, but I didn't buy his central relationship with Jones for a second. Lionel Barrymore was an absolute hoot as the father and Joseph Cotten as reliable as ever but while entertaining and nice to look at there's not a tremendous amount of quality here.

So that was one example of how they "used" to do it where it's actually probably not a bad thing that they don't make movies that way. I did though, straight after that, get to see a film on the big screen that I've waxed lyrical about on this blog before - La Antena. It holds up months later as one of my favourite films of this decade. This is a prime example of what can happen when you make them "like they used to" but do so with a modern take to it or approach. For those who missed the earlier review it's an Argentinian film, in black and white, which is mainly silent and has the speech of the characters come up in the environment, enabling characters to crumple up words or push them out of the way. I won't recap it all again, but the allegory does deepen and it does make you think a lot whilst utterly teasing the senses with the beautiful inventiveness of this wonderful film.

But the real reason I think sometimes "they" do make them like they used to is pretty much a culmination of a lot of Oriental films over the past decade. South Korea in particular is the hub of the "genre" film, they make the most wonderful chick flicks and rom coms and tear jerkers, as well as top notch war and action films. I was already getting into South-East Asian cinema (or "Oriental", or "Asian", however PC or not you are - delete as applicable) when Jonathan Ross did a 3 part "Asian Invasion" series on BBC Four two and a half years ago. On the back of the Korean one they showed Take Care of My Cat, which I adore and then I bought Failan, starring Cecilia Cheung on the back of that. After the Hong Kong show I also looked everywhere I could for a copy of Lost in Time as the Korean tearjerker I'd bought was so magnificent I wanted to see Cheung's most acclaimed performance (which was in this Hong Kong film I couldn't find). I've looked for it for over 2 years and never found it.

Well, someone put it up on youtube last week and having watched it ... this is EXACTLY the kind of film that Greer Garson or Barbara Stanwyck would have been doing in the 30s and 40s. It's just a very nice, simple, gentle film with the culmination towards an incredibly emotional moment, before wrapping it up afterwards. Failan is the better film, but here Cecilia has a much better role (as the fiancee of a man who dies, left struggling to raise his child and take over his business driving a minibus around the city) and it's the best I've seen her. The film follows a colleague of Cecilia's dead fiancee who increasingly helps her and the child out more and more. Nothing revelatory, just a lovely little film. And that is exactly what the region has been churning out for the last 10 years, especially South Korea. When people say "they don't make them like they used to", it's more accurate to say "Hollywood doesn't make them like they used to" because there are parts of the world where very simple, effective storytelling in well made films is alive and flourishing.