Memoirs of a Movie Theater Maestro

Mr. Chalong Praditsuwan stood out in my mind as one of the more thoughtful characters I had encountered while researching Thailand's stand-alone movie theaters. Having once been at the helm of entertainment in his home town of Taphan Hin, Phichit, Chalong knew all the ins and outs of the movie industry in Thailand, past and present, including the societal shifts that had rendered his business lifeless.

He was also in possession of one of the most affable personalities out there, a trait, I surmised, that would lend itself exactingly to the making of a short documentary about Thailand's movie-going past.

A return visit to his movie theater-turned-private home after more than four years proved me correct. Here's the outcome of that meeting.

COMING SOON!

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Southeast Asia Movie Theater Project proudly presents its first sojourn into the realm of motion picture making. After 5 years of working exclusively with still photography, we've teamed up with Bangkok-based VS Service to produce a short documentary film about a one-of-a-kind movie theater in Thailand's lower north.

Our hope is that this short will segue into to a feature length documentary project in the foreseeable future.

Stay tuned, trusty viewers! Great stuff is soon to come.

The Taphan Hin Rama - Taphan Hin, Phichid, Thailand

"Most people think that TV, VHS and DVD caused the death of small town theaters like this one," said the owner of the defunct Taphan Hin Rama. "That once everybody had their own home entertainment center, going to the movies became of thing of the past. Not so! It wasn't that which put us under. We were assassinated by the distribution companies."

Chalong Praditsuwan stood poised, reflectively explaining the series of events which culminated in his theater's demise.

"Before they got greedy, the distributors used to split the profits with us. It was a fair deal and both parties prospered. But as time went by, the distributors figured they could make more money without the hassle of having to race around providing the film reels to all the different theaters. So they opened their own theaters. It didn't matter if their films only got a fraction of the audience they had before, because the revenue was all theirs. They didn't have to split it with the independent theaters anymore. Yes, they continued distributing to the independents, but not before charging a flat fee for the movie which we had to pay in full regardless if it made any money or not."

Other factors took their toll as well.

"On top of that," he proceeded, "the distributors stopped paying for advertising costs - like printing posters and buying space in the papers - and left that up to the independent theaters to do. We had to compete with each other for first dibs on the reels. Whoever put on a better advertising campaign was awarded the reel first. In Taphan Hin there were two other theaters, but mine was usually the first-run theater. I spent a lot, and the result was smaller profits"

With that, Chalong dug out some old photo albums, the contents of which revealed the colorful past of his now-dormant Taphan Hin Rama. The 60 year old ex-theater owner happily recalled the various ad campaigns he staged in town to draw crowds to his enterprise. From four-meter high hand painted billboards, to horse caravans and costumed parades through the center of town. He even hired local song taew drivers to pick up patrons at a designated spot and bring them to the Taphan Hin Rama for free.

Horses were hired to parade through town adverting a Thai Western

Chalong hired a group of locals to don costumes and parade through town on a buffalo to advertise a Hong Kong period film.

Ad campaign for the movie "Gold 2" featuring a motorbike with a hang-glider attached to it.

My personal favorite, the audience before the start of a film. Notice how everybody is well dressed.

On December 17th 1979, the Taphan Hin Rama had its grand opening, with 'Supersonic Man' as its debut film.

Photos from opening day

"Each region of the country has its own distributors," continued Chalong. "All the small theater owners had to go through their regional distributors to get the films. Up here in northern Thailand, Pranakorn Films is the distributor. Nobody else is allowed to distribute in the north. It's the law. Once Pranakorn Films started to open their own theaters under the name Thana Cineplex, that was the beginning of the end for us. They raised their prices and simply pushed us out of business. Believe it or not, at one point their was at least one theater in every district of Phichid. Now there's only the Thana Cineplex in Happyland Shopping Center in the provincial capitol. Nothing else. Pranakorn Films killed the independent theaters throughout northern Thailand. They really killed a way of life."

The Taphan Hin Rama's dormant auditorium and screen

Looking towards the rear of the auditorium. To the left of the projection booth is the glassed-off soundtrack room, for patrons who wanted to watch foreign movies in their original dialogue.

The soundtrack room

The bluntness of Chalong Praditsuwan's explanation was refreshing. His critical angle was in contrast to most of the current literature on the subject, which tends to view the fall of Thailand's stand-alone and independent theaters as the inevitable result of changing consumer tastes and habits, without so much as mentioning the complicity of industry heavyweights in the process. In the case of Pranakorn Films, aside from distribution and exhibition, they also produce movies. That combination makes them a vertically integrated business, which by its very nature stifles competition. The practice might pass as permissible if there were strong evidence that efficiency gains were being shared at least equally with comsumers, but that's obviously not the case. How could it be? Now if you want to go to the movies and you live in Phichid you've got to get all the way to the provincial capitol and pay a premium. That's definitely not efficient!

Across the globe and way back in 1948, the US Supreme Court won a landmark anti-trust case (United States vs. Paramount Pictures) against the major Hollywood-based movie studios who had, over a period of time, developed their own theater chains to exclusively exhibit the films that they produced. The ruling forced the studios to sell off their theaters as a means of stimulating competition among theater owners. But more importantly, it forced them to come up with potentially better and more varied films for consumers to choose from. Maybe it's time for a case like that to be filed in Thailand.

But it would be unfair to pin the blame exclusively on the big, vertically integrated theater chains. Like Taphan Hin, smaller cities throughout Thailand have been suffering from weak economies and severe cases of brain drain for decades, with the majority of their capable young people running off to Bangkok or abroad in pursuit of careers, while abandoning their home town cinemas to childhood memory. Even Chalong's kids, now grown, have opted to reside overseas rather than settle down in little Taphan Hin and try to figure out ways to get the family business back on its feet.

In hindsight, it would be interesting to see what might have become of small town theaters like the Taphan Hin Rama had the distributors been a bit more fair.

The Sri Charoen Rama - Sam Ngam, Pichit, Thailand

"My boy got out of the cinema business and then started playing politics," said Jian Ploykittakul, sitting in the cool of her farm equipment supply shop. A steady flow of customers entered the cavernous store while we talked, handing Jian cash in exchange for various farming devises and inputs.

A woman awaits transport in front of the Sri Charoen Rama

“The cinema business was a good business for a while," she continued, "before everybody started buying TVs. There used to be people running in and out of that place all day long. Thai movies, American movies, Hong Kong movies; you name it, my boy knew how to get people to come watch it. We had four showings per days, plus a mid-night porn screening. Yeah, times were different then; before the highway was built.”

A mesh tarp is strung up over the ground in front of the decaying Sri Charoen Rama Theater.

Junk

Jian has been living in Sam Ngam all her life. Her son Tawatchay, now a local politician, was the driving force behind the Sri Charoen Rama, which he opened in 1981. Less than 30 years later and the theater is a road-side relic, plunged into obsolescence by technological advances and the decline of small town life. The Route 115 highway which cuts through the town and the string of ugly, concrete buildings stretching along side it weren’t there when the theater was built. All that land was paddy field for as far as the eye could see. In the 1980’s, Sam Ngam was a typical farming community in Thailand's lower north and the Sri Charoen Rama was the symbolic town center - the most frequented place around aside from the market.


The Sri Charoen Rama's auditorium is of a "bowling lane" design - long and narrow. It's ceiling is also caving in and there's pigeon droppings everywhere.

After 80-plus years in Sam Ngam, Jian Ploykittakul has witnessed many changes in the character of the town. She has seen it morph from an idyllic village to a car-suburb of Pichit city. Her own family has likewise changed course, with her son leaving the business world for a life in the civil services. Though harboring a mother’s pride for her son’s political successes, she expressed a discernible nostalgia for the days when he was the bringer of joy to the Sam Ngam townsfolk; a short-lived reign as the cinema king in this small corner of Pichit province.

To the memory of the Sri Charoen Rama

The Pichit Pathana Theater - Pichit, Thailand

The train pulled into Pichit station a little before 11, with the late morning sun already high in the sky. Approximately half an hour after being in the crowded little city on the Nan River, I'd located its lone dormant giant: the Pichit Pathana Theater.

Very little background data on this place was gleaned, aside from a vague date of birth sometime in the late 60's or early 70's. A woman working in a nearby restaurant recalled that it closed up four years ago, shortly after the Thana Company opened a four-screen cineplex in the local shopping mall.

At some point the Pichit Pathana was renamed the S.P.T. Cineplex, but all the locals I talked to referred to it as the former.

Showing today

"Boom-Boom," the night club, accessible only from the rear of the building, has taken over a portion of the Pichit Pathana's auditorium. Judging by the pair of boxer shorts hanging out to dry and the two dozen or so neatly arranged empty beer bottles, I'd say that a down and out member of the Pichit community has taken over the lobby. Under normal circumstances, I would think that it's pretty cool to be able to call an old movie theater home, but not when it's on the verge of collapse. The ceiling of the lobby is falling down!

Crumbling lobby

Some soothing pastels around the ticket window

Boxers, beer and candy

ooze
As for the town of Pichit itself, it was very crowded. Very crowded and very poor! There's some nice old buildings along the river which seem like they were once involved in a little riparian commerce, but they're looking pretty shabby these days. In the middle of the city stands a branch of one of the big hypermarket chains, the same building that houses the Thana theaters. It was grimly enlightening to see that this place was completely mobbed, sucking in all the towns consumers like a black hole. The smaller shop-houses were noticeably less active.

If a lifeless Pichit Pathana Theater, a high vacancy rate among small shops and a general aura of decrepitude indicate anything, I'd say it's that Pichit is in a depressed state.