The San Thit U Cinema - Myanaung, Irrawaddy Region, Myanmad

It's hard to believe that just three short months ago I was lugging my camera around Myanmar looking for old theaters to shoot. If you'd have told me then that in a few weeks time the world would be in the midst of a pandemic induced lockdown, I'd have politely dismissed you as another peddler in conspiracy theories.  But lo and behold, here we are.

Three months ago I was happily ensconced in the time machine that is small town Myanmar. The town of Myanaung to be exact, in the northwestern corner of Irrawaddy region. As the crow flies, Myanaung looks like it's a short trip by road from Yangon. But due to its position on the west bank of the Irrawaddy River, with scarcely a spanning bridge for hundreds of miles, getting to Myanaung takes forever.

This relative remoteness is a bit of a blessing. While trade with Myanaung is facilitated by both road and river, it's far enough from any major highway routes to be commercially protected from the scourge of slowly growing highway retail. A dense and lively urban core thrives as a result. Only the richest families own private cars, so there's little need for car oriented infrastructure on a mass scale. Everyone else makes due with bicycles and motorbikes.  

Myanaung still does most of its trade by river boat. Goods are carried up the riverbank by laborers. The central market lies just beyond. 

Myanaung's central market (above) 

and the ornate shops and godowns that surround it (below)

The pace of life in Myanaung is busy, but not overwhelmingly so. Foot traffic reaches its peak where commerce is most brisk; at the old central market. This bilevel wooden structure would be the architectural showpiece in almost any other town of this scale, but in Myanaung it's out done and out classed by the stunning array of shops and godowns that surround it. For whatever mysterious reason the facades of these buildings are being meticulously restored. 

Myanaung's commercial core abuts the Irrawaddy waterfront, conduit for much of the town's trade. Cargo is carried from mostly small vessels up the steep riverbank by longshoremen, where it's then parceled out to various warehouses and market stalls. The labor at Myanaung's port is done by teams of men and women as opposed to cranes and container systems. Technology is on the march across Myanmar, but old ways still persist in most places. Myanaung is no exception.    

Two quick blocks from the central market stands yet another architectural charm. The local movie theater, of course. 

Morning gatherers at the San Thi U Cinema

Over the years, three different movie theaters have stood in Myanaung. The two older of the three, both constructed of wood, were pulled down long ago. Remaining is the 60-plus year old San Thi U Cinema. Myanaung's first and only brick and concrete movie hall. 

The San Thi U is a rock of a building. It's head house walls are a solid foot thick. The front portico lightens the load, visually, with its slim-ish collumns and proportionately thin roof, but everything behind that looks like it was carved out of a granite cliff.  I didn't get to meet the owner, but it's pretty obvious that whoever built it intended for it to project an aura of strength. Either that or bricks were still dirt cheap in those days. Maybe both.  

A noodle vendor set up along the side of the theater structure feeds hungry laborers on their way to work.

San Thi U Cinema signage

Posters abandoned in poster cases and on bulletin boards in the lobby. The San Thi U stopped showing films about 10 years ago.

The teak wood seats of the San Thi U piled up in a field on the grounds of a local temple. Probably to be used as firewood. 

Word among the locals was that the San Thi U stopped screening films about 10 or 12 years back. Today it's used to store construction material like rebar, but it seems like it may have been sitting dormant for a while prior. 

All the wooden bench seats were recently removed, donated to a nearby temple where they sit in a tangled pile in a patch of open ground. 

Given the vibrancy of Myanaung as the commercial epicenter of west-upper Irrawaddy region - not to mention the already a strong movement to restore and beautify old buildings in town - the San Thi U Cinema seems prime for a revival. Years ago, just about every town on the west bank of the Irrawaddy in this part of the country could lay claim to its own cinema. Now the nearest one is in Hinthada, which is a few hours away by road. I'd imagine that the denizens of all the little smallvilles between there and Kyangin would flock to Myanaung for a movie and a rip-roaring good time in the "big city" if the San Thi U were to reopen. 

Guess we'll see how things pan out after the pandemic.

The Aung Theit Hti Cinema - Myaungmya, Irrawaddy Region, Myanmyar

When entering Myaungmya by road, the first notable site is an enormous brick church at the edge of town. The scenery at this early entry point is leafy and green, giving said church an out sized, almost medieval look against the sparse surroundings. 

Moving further into the urban core, modest, mostly two story residences and shop houses unfurl on both sides of the contoured street. When town center is reached, the architectural sobriety gives way to the recherche ornamentation of Myaungmya's waterfront shop houses. These bejeweled trophies of plaster and brick, built in the middle decades of last century by the town's wealthy merchants, form the low-rise pinnacle of one of Myanmar's most enamoring cities. 

Like many towns in the Irrawaddy Delta, Myaungmya has a waterfront buzzing with activity. Squadrons of dockworkers still unload small and medium sized vessels by hand into low slung godowns just next to the river. And among the industries still found along the water's edge is boat building, a sign that riparian trade continues to play a major role in this low lying corner of the country. 

So long as poor road infrastructure in the Delta keeps trucking from being a cost-effective form of transport, it's likely that Myaungmya's busy port will stay busy. 

As for its movie theaters, that's another story. 

The Aung Theit Hti Cinema - the oldest standing cinema structure in Myaungmya

While not on par aesthetically with the opulent structures that inhabit Myaungmya's commercial core, the Aung Theit Hti (Hti is pronounced Tee) Cinema blends perfectly in with its surrounding residential neighborhood. Set back from the street side building line and a few steps below street level, the modest former movie hall occupies a nearly anonymous nook of the city. If it were not pointed out to me by a local shop-keeper, it would have gone altogether unnoticed. 

The name and year constructed are faintly visible on the upper edifice of the Aung Theit Hti

A poster board sits slatternly among the debris of the open air lobby 

30 years have gone by since the Aung Theit Hti was operational. Three decades worth of neglect have likely wreaked havoc on the place. But besides the exterior, with its brick patio now leased out to a tea shop, I wasn't able to see for myself, nor share my findings with you, thanks to a kernel of fear planted in my head by the shop-keeper who led me there. After taking me to meet the owners, a frail, elderly couple who live in one of the ornate shop-houses in town center, I was offered the chance to photograph the Aung Theit Hti's interior. Victory, I thought, especially after learning that the theater's components - the seats and screen and curtain - apparently stood as they had been left when it closed. For an architectural photographer, particularly one who specializes in modern day ruins, this was music to my ears. 

Just as we departed the theater owners home, the shop keeper said to me, "You're young and strong. It would be no problem for you to deal with the giant snake that lives there. But I'm too old. You can go in alone."

He said "giant snake." In my mind's eye, I saw the world's largest cobra curled up in the filth of the theater. I imagined it lurching at me as I accidentally kick it while setting up my tripod. The headlines splashed across the Myanmar Times: American Photographer Bitten by Cobra, Dies in Abandoned Cinema.

He was bluffing, of course, to keep me from going in. And I'm a fool for buying it. But hindsight is 20/20, and the thought of a painful death by snake bite in putrid cinema hall caused me enough doubt to halt the survey.

  

The Shwe Pyi Taw Cinema - Pathein, Irrawaddy Region, Myanmar

A concrete jungle in a watery land. That's Pathein for you. The biggest city in the Irrawaddy Delta. Myanmar's proverbial rice bowl.

Pathein's past primacy can be read in its logistical heritage. It is the terminus city for a railroad spur that juts southwest from the Yangon-Pyay line - the country's oldest rail line. British colonial logic designated Pathein as the western most fresh water port in the Delta that could be reachable by locomotive.

Today the port is still bustling. The train, much less so.

For the workers on Pathein's busy waterfront - the longshoremen, sailors, porters and so on - downtime is often spent as it has been for decades, under the flicker of film at the Shwe Pyi Taw Cinema.

    

Subdued International Style architecture of the Shwe Pyi Taw Cinema

The entrance to the Shwe Pyi Taw is along the length of the building. The grand head house is reserved for small shops. Recent renovations have resulted in the entrance side of the theater being clad in colorful vinyl panels.

Lobby

Shadows and colors

The Shwe Pyi Taw has been entertaining Patheinians - dock worker or otherwise - since at least the mid-1960's, according to the floor manager. Once one of a trio of theaters in the city, including one which stood directly across the street, the new and improved Shwe Pyi Taw is now the last operating cinema in town and one of only two still in business in the entirety of the province.

To stay afloat, the theater was given a complete renovation in 2015, which cut the number of seats down by nearly sixty percent. In fact, the entire auditorium was physically reduced in a bid to save electricity costs against a newly installed air-con system; the first the old theater has ever had.

In addition to a rightsized auditorium with new seats and climate control, projection and sound have both been upgraded to digital. 

Part of the 20-plus staff at the Shwe Pyi Taw in leisure mode between screenings.

Door girl on duty

The wall on the right is the original wall of the Shwe Pyi Taw before renovations reduced the auditorium. On the left is the new wall after, post-reduction.

Old carbon-arc projectors sit unused in the former projection booth. A new projection booth, containing the digital audio-projection system, has since been built. 

All new seats in the Shwe Pyi Taw Cinema

VIP seats. Most theaters in Myanmar have their back several rows of seats separated by partitions for couples. Added privacy for a few extra Kyat.

Screen views

Reduced number of seats, increased comfort.

The Shwe Pyi Taw Cinema at night

In 1968, the central government nationalized all the movie theaters, with oversight given to the Ministry of Information. A special department tasked with running them was established in the form of the Myanmar Motion Picture Enterprise. Under the MMPE's stewardship, most of the country's cinema halls were neglected, with few if any improvements made to the majority of them. The end result was a fairly well preserved, if shabby, stock of traditional movie halls across the country.

Since 1997, the MMPE has been privatizing its movie theater holdings. While many of those sold off have since been razed to make way for new developments, a few, the Shwe Pyi Taw included, have had new capital poured into them with the aim of making them profitable again. It remains to be seen how many of Myanmar's stand-alones will be salvaged in this manner, but the very fact that it's happening at all is noteworthy. 

Even if only one is preserved for every 5 that are destroyed, Myanmar's movie theater evolution will be moving in a very interesting direction compared to the rest of Southeast Asia, if not the world.

The San Thit Cinema - Ma-ubin, Irrawaddy Region, Myanmar

The San Thit Cinema stands just in front of the docks at Ma-ubin on the gently rolling Myitmaka River. The building itself is barely visible from the street due to its placement below street level and obscured behind a strip of one story shop houses that face the thoroughfare. Behind the theater, surrounding it on three of its four sides, are low slung warehousing facilities holding goods brought up off  and destined for the boats below. Bundles of raw tobacco, jars of various spices and sacks of rice are piled floor to ceiling in these wooden godowns, which are connected to each other, the waterfront and the cinema by a warren of narrow lanes. It's an ecosystem of transit, trade and leisure so tightly intertwined that it's as if it were a living organism. 

The waterfront scene at Ma-ubin is typical for a modestly sized port town in the Irrawaddy Delta. At just 40 miles by river west of Yangon, the bustling burg is ideally situated for riparian trade. In former times, one can imagine dock workers breaking from their duties to catch a film at the San Thit Cinema - or the Shwe Aung Cinema, which was just next door. Cinematic reprieve from a life on the waterfront was quite literally just a few steps away.  

Movie posters stapled to boards just above the main entrance of the San Thit Cinema

Ticket window

Beyond the folding wooden doors of the San Thit Cinema, a sea of hand crafted wooded seats, neatly arranged in narrow rows, unfolds before the eyes. Such a sight is increasingly rare in Myanmar. As the old theaters go out of business, owners sell the seats to antique dealers, usually in neighboring countries like Thailand and China, where a market for such cultural curiosities is quite strong. Alternatively, a handful of theaters in Myanmar have recently been modernized, in which case the old wooden seats have likewise been removed to make room for new cushioned ones.

Auditorium views

In the days before electrical lighting was a staple, natural light served as a means of illumination. The wooden awning windows at the top can be opened and closed to lighten and darken the auditorium as needed. 

Interesting curve in the balcony rail.

Balcony views

Almost all movie theaters in Myanmar feature partitions between every two seats in the back rows, as pictured in the above photo. This addition allows couples attending a film to have a modicum of privacy. In a conservative society like Myanmar, trips to the cinema for young lovers is generally the only privacy they're likely to get. These seats are at a premium because of it.

The man above was the caretaker of the San Thit Cinema. He has been at the San Thit since it opened in 1963, when he was just a young boy. 

Seven months ago the cinema stopped showing movies, though it still opens occasionally to screen football matches via an LCD projector. 

The name San Thit translates to "modern."