The Seno Rama - Seno, Savannakhet province, Laos

An afternoon spent stalking the Seno Rama and its environs, I reckon, is about equal to an hour of being whipped by a Sahara sandstorm. That is to say, in the arid plains of Savannakhet during the dry season, beside a heavily trucked stretch of Highway No. 9, the dust is bad - adding a breathable realism to this Mad Maxian landscape.

It's hard to imagine that a place like Seno would have ever warranted the luxury of a cinema hall. A ramshackle built environment along a B-grade portion of road, doesn't exactly elucidate a picture of past prosperity. But then again, Laos is covered with surprises - some of which even explode when tread upon.

Seno, moreover, is the least unusual of the unusual Laotian places that once laid claim to a movie theater. Had this project commenced just a few years earlier there would be reportage from jungle settlements in remote Phongsali Province, where itinerant traders, rugged pioneers and speakers of tribal dialects once crammed into cinema halls for doses of propaganda-tinged entertainment - capitalist or communist depending on which side of 1975 is in question. But alas, arrived too late.

Exoticisms notwithstanding, diminutive Seno has an equally legitimate reason for being home to a movie theater: since the days of French colonialism, Seno has played host to a military base.

The Seno Rama abuts Highway 9 in the town it's named after.

When the Seno Rama opened in 1970, the nearby military base was home to battalions of the American-backed Royal Lao Army. Located just thirty-eight kilometers east of prospering Savannakhet made it an important bulwark against attacks on the city by Pathet Lao guerrillas, operating out of the jungles further east.

Salaried Royal Lao soldiers, in dire need of peril-relieving escapism - pre-TV and internet - represented a reliable clientele for a movie theater proprietor. And so, with built-in market in mind, the Seno Rama was erected at the height of the Laotian Civil War.

With a gaunt appearance long reconciled to time, the Seno Rama linger on.

A medley of architectural styles, the facade of the Seno Rama shares several characteristics with the Nang Lit Cinema in nearby Savannakhet. Both were built around the same time so it's likely they were products of the same architect.

A faint imprint of former "Seno Rama" signage is visible near the facade's crest.
Each of the four diamonds on both sides of the perforated wall were once filled with colored tiles of black, white, red and blue, respectively. The tile has since been smashed out.

Business was brisk at the Seno Rama throughout the early 1970's, reaping benefits from the run-off of a war-time economy. But when the regime changed in 1975, the theater's founder departed Laos for the United States - as did many of the country's business class. His theater thus became state property, screening films from ally countries like Vietnam, the USSR and India, with messages in line with Party rhetoric.

The Seno military base was also taken over by the new government, and manned by soldiers from the Lao People's Army. Then, in 1991, Laos lost its chief economic benefactor with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Funding cuts meant that non-essentials like movie theaters, under the supervision of the Ministry of Information, would be forced to close. By the early 1990's the Seno Rama had been decommissioned.

The tiles used in the lobby are similar to tiles used in Savannakhet buildings dating back to the 1920's.

The staircase behind the ticket booth led to balcony seats.

Ticket window dust and rust.

In spite of appearances, the Seno Rama is still held in high esteem by some locals. "In the future, we would like to make it into a site of cultural significance for Seno" its current tenant said. "It's one of the town's important old buildings."

The tenant's wife mentioned further that the theater was briefly revived in 2008 to screen Sabaidee Luang Prabang, the first movie produced in Laos since the collapse of the Royal government. "The place was totally full for that," she said proudly, as if a cinematic future might actually be feasible.

But in the mean time, making the most of a derelict space has taken precedence. The tenant, a teacher by trade, has erected a badminton net in front of the proscenium, and for a small fee allows people in to play.

Auditorium views

Whether efforts at renewing this classic little theater will ever come to a head is uncertain, but that lip service was payed to the idea is a positive sign. There are, after all, millions of dollars worth of industrial investments pouring into the nearby Savannakhet-Seno Special Economic Zone. Maybe some of that will find its way into the coffers of regeneration.

But for now the Seno Rama sits mostly vacant, a haunting reminder of different times in a town that time has forgotten.

The Lao Chaleun Revisited - Savannakhet, Laos

The epic Lao Chaleun Cinema, in all its dilapidated elegance, is still standing. I didn't re-explore its innards this time round, fearing imminent collapse, but I did re-shoot the facade. Here are a couple of them.

Aside from being one of the more iconic theaters ever to be featured on this site, it also features prominently in the city of Savannakhet. One of the city's key landmarks; a 1930's tropical art deco masterpiece, palatial in size, with an inviting, carnival-like beauty.

For more photos and details, visit the original post of this theater from nearly 3 years ago.

Nang Lit Cinema Update - Savannakhet, Laos

Savannakhet has undergone a number of transformations since my fist visit there three years ago. Chief among them is a construction boom on the north end of town, near where Highway No. 9 crosses the city. Most of the construction is in the shape of industrial facilities, part of the rapidly growing Savannakhet-Xeno Special Economic Zone, a 35 kilometer stretch of converted rice paddy along Highway No. 9, where foreign investment is being lured via tax shelter.

Highway 9 is the Lao portion of a trans-Mekong Sub Region road expected to link the port of Danang on Vietnam's eastern seaboard with the coast of Burma. The Vietnamese, Lao and Thai portions of this road are already up and running, thanks in large to Japanese (JICA) development grants. Fractious Burma, on the other hand, has yet to be linked.

This flurry of activity on the northern end of Savannakhet, stimulated by international trucking and investment, has yet to jump start the old French-colonial core to the south, which functions at a sleep walkers' pace; partially inhabited, partially inebriated, partially fixed in a malaise of disinvestment 36 years in the making.

But from the SEA Movie Theater Project's perspective, there is one change to the town's historic core that is of epic importance: the former Nang Lit Cinema has been revived.

In mid- 2010, the Nang Lit was leased out by a private exhibitor and has been quietly back in the movie business ever since. Screenings are not daily, unfortunately, a luxury made unfeasible by a dearth of incoming films and a population so small that the market is saturated after only a handful of screenings.

During my five nights in Savannakhet, the revived Nang Lit - now called the Khounsavan Cinema - sat dormant, its battered carbon-arc projectors motionless on their mounts. The next scheduled film wasn't until early January.

An architectural medley, the Nang Lit Cinema.

The honeycomb-yellow paint job over the vented upper lobby wall tastefully accents this unique architectural feature. But the new sign is about as bad as you can get.

One of the most unique facades I've seen on a theater anywhere. Too bad the original free-standing letters are missing from above the cornice.

A lapse in operation didn't keep me from getting into the old Nang Lit. The caretaker/projectionist, a Mr. Mith, was kind enough to open the gates and show me around the theater's inner sanctums.

A ten year veteran of the building, Mith claimed that current Nang Lit, dating to around 1970, was built as an upgraded version of a much older wooden theater which preceded it. The original owner, a Laotian of Chinese descent, named the theater after his daughter, 'Lit,' operating it in stiff competition with another three theaters which once vied for the patronage of Savannakhet's entertainment seekers.

In the wake of Pathet Lao ascendancy - May, 1975 - the owner and his family crossed over into Thailand en route to refuge in America, forever relinquishing their cinema to memory and seizure by the communist regime. But to this day, the family legacy is easily one of the most striking buildings to grace Savannakhet's gridded streets.

Here's the view of upper lobby, the reverse side of the perforated wall. The vented aspect is a fairly common architectural feature among mid-20th century theaters in Southeast Asia. When many of these theaters were built, consistent electricity supply was lacking. Theaters were powered by diesel generators (still the case in Burma). Perforated walls and open air lobbies thus served as shady, cool waiting spaces without squandering valuable energy on A/C.

Up leads to the projection room, down to the lower lobby.


Tiled balcony entrance arch.

The back rows of the balcony are extremely steep, well above the top of the screen.

Two carbon-arc projectors made by the Peerless company, formerly of Omaha, Nebraska. The projectors date to the Nang Lit's redesigning back in 1970.

In the projection room, I chanced on some enticements beyond the theater's architectural craftmanship. There on the floor, beside two old carbon-arc projectors sat reels of film, some partially unraveled, others neatly stored in boxes. "What's on these?" I inquired of Mith.

"Old movies," he replied nonchalantly. "Mostly from India."

Now, it must be kept in mind that in all of my theater explorations, only once or twice have I encountered coveted reels of old film. Movie collectors and film preservationists have been known to pay handsomely for original movie prints. A few years ago, 25 minutes worth of footage cut from Fritz Lang's silent classic Metropolis, long believed destroyed, was rediscovered in Argentina. The full length version has since been restored and released in theaters around the world.

Recalling the Metropolis case, dreams of fortunes made from the sale of original movie prints crept into my brain. I could fund this project for the next three years if I got hold of a rare film, I schemed, maybe even put some money in my pocket.

"Would you be interested in selling any of these prints," I opened, imagining a copy of some long-forgotten title from Bengali director Satyajit Ray among the stock.

"No, sir. They are not for sale."

Oh well, at least I tried.

So I didn't walk out of the Nang Lit Cinema cradling thousands of dollars worth of rare Indian movie prints from the 1970's. Anyway, all the money in the world pales in comparison with the satisfaction of having seen - with my own two eyes - the tepid revival of one of Laos' few remaining stand-alone movie palaces.

Happy New Year all!

Another one yet from Savannaket -- The Nang Lit Theaeter -- Savannaket, Laos

A half a block from the Lao Chaleun Cinema and on the opposite side of the street stands the Nang Lit Theater. Just off Savannaket's town square, the Nang Lit still occasionally screens movies, as it did for the recently released and ever rare Laotian film, Sabaidee Luang Phrabang.

A middle aged woman running a small minimart across the street gave me the general stats on the old theater: the original owner, in an act of paternal adoration, named the theater after his daughter, Lit. He was of Lao-Chinese descent and left the country for gay Paris after the defeat of the royalist regime. He, as well as his daughter Lit, have since passed away.

Apparently the place operated normally until 1991. Since then it's been turned into a cultural center, occasionally opening its doors for a movie screening.


I wasn't able to find out when it was built, but the minimart owner says it's been there as long as she's been on the planet. I'm guessing it was built in the 1950's or early 60's. It's definitely architecturally out of character for most of Savannaket, which is more French colonial.

Among the things listed on the poster paper in the lobby: no weapons, sharp item or things that can make people sick are permitted in the theater.

Ticket prices are 3,000 Kip for Lao and 10,000 for foreigners

(On a side note, Savannaket used to have another 2 theaters, The Savan Rama and one which nobody could recall the name of).

Lao Chaleun Cinema - Savannaket, Laos

Lao Chaleun translates to Prospering Laos

A tourist brochure for Savannaket city dated the Lao Chaleun Cinema to the 1930's. Since most of it is concrete, I find that hard to believe, but I know very little about architecture or what building materials were used when. Nonetheless, this was was the most edifying abandoned theater I've found to date.

I was told that it was built with the intention of being the anchor for the entire two rows of commercial and residential buildings that it's attached to, an interesting concept in itself. An entire neighborhood built around a cinema!

It is divided into two separate sections. The facade and facilities attached to it face onto Kaisone Phomivan Road, while the main auditorium is in another building in a back alley. A long corridor leads from the front entrance to the auditorium in the rear, while the two sections are connected by a patio bridge. I wish I knew more about that front section. What was it used for? It looks like there was commercial space there. Maybe the theater's offices, or concessions?

Entrance to the auditorium.

Patio bridge straddles an alley, connecting the facade section and auditorium.

Second floor looking across the patio bridge towards the front building.

Presumably the ticket window

View from the balcony

View of balcony, projector's window on the back wall.

Projectionist's room

That's right, despite the fact the Lao Chaleun has been closed for over 30 years there are still old reels of film lying around.

The temptation to take one of these old reels was there, but just as I was about to do it I recalled the curse of King Tut's tomb.

I've been told this might be the Thai actor of yesteryear Sombat Chareun in the frame. Hard to tell.

Does anybody know what this says?

Hammer and Sickle stencil on wall of the projectionist's room.

This really is a classic structure. Unfortunately, a restoration job seems unlikely anytime in the near future, and in it's present condition I can't see it holding up too much longer. The least we can hope for is that somebody or some entity has the foresight to preserve the facade. After all, it is advertised on the Savannaket guide brochure as a site of historic significance in the city. You'd think somebody would step up and save the Lao Chaleun.