Rare wooden movie theater demolished in southern Laos.

If it's any indication that Laos' overall economy is growing, another of the country's historic cinemas has been knocked down to make way for a new structure. This marks the 4th Lao theater to fall since the SEA Movie Theater Project got underway in 2008.

The Ta Luang Cinema stood in the heart of a residential neighborhood in central Pakse, the 2nd largest city in southern Laos. Probably the most notable aspect of the Ta Luang (Royal Port) Cinema was that it was built almost entirely from wood.

In the early days of cinema in Southeast Asia, wooden theaters were the norm, as were most buildings built before World War II. Concrete became the standard building material after the war, leading to a gradual replacement of most of the region's wooden theaters.

Burma still has many theaters that have wooden auditoriums, but their facades are made of concrete. As for theaters made completely of wood, facade and all, only three have ever encountered here; one in Bangkok, one in Chiang Kong and the Ta Luang, which exists no more.

Isn't it good, Laotian wood?

Save for the foundation, the Ta Luang was all wood.

A peak inside the Ta Luang Theater reveals a screen still. 

Pakse sits astride one of several Greater Mekong Sub-region transit corridors, designed to increase overland trade from Vietnam's coast to the ports of Burma. As a result, the city has seen a rapid rise in economic activity, from light industry to tourism.

   

Rumor has it that a guesthouse will replace the demolished Ta Laung Cinema. 

Kick start the Cambodian phase

SEA Movie Theater Project readers! For the next month I'll be on Kickstarter.com in a bid to raise funds for a survey of Cambodia's movie theaters. Below is a promotional video for this phase of the project.

With any luck, the SEA Movie Theater Project will be Cambodia-bound in a few months to collect images and histories of this waning aspect of Khmer pop culture. Like all the country's of Southeast Asia, where progress runs roughshod over its recent cultural past, Cambodia's old cinemas are highly endangered artifacts. There's little time to waste in getting started documenting them.

And if you've ever wondered who this so-called "Projectionist" character really is, have a look at the video below, my identity is revealed.

When the Magnate was Young

In 1954, an ambitious young entrepreneur from the Thonburi section of Bangkok was invited to be a partner in a palatial, modern movie theater being constructed on a prominent corner of the Wong Wiang Yai roundabout. He was the last and least seasoned of five investors. The theater was named the Chalerm Kiad, roughly translated as "Great Prestige." 

Despite the theater's success, it turned out to be a short lived partnership for the novice theater man, who was cajoled by the senior partners into selling his portion to them at a loss. But the lessons learned were soon recycled. Within a year, the young upstart had financed his own movie theater at nearby Plu Market, the first of what would evolve into a family-operated empire of movie theaters throughout Bangkok and its suburbs. 

The young man's name was Charoen Poonworaluk, later known by the moniker Sia Charoen, or "millionaire Charoen." The theater chain he founded, which he put under the management of his three younger brothers, was called Co Brothers. 

Two of Sia Charoen's sons, along with two of his nephews went on to found the EGV and Major cineplex chains, respectively. Today, EGV and Major are merged into a single entity, the largest entertainment conglomerate in Thailand, with branches in every region of the country.

As of this 2009 photograph, the Chalerm Kiad Theater was a worn and weathered adult theater.

Signage and marquee

As of my prior visit in 2009, the Chalerm Kiad had been lingering on  as an X-rated flop house. While passing the theater this past February, I noticed that it was out of business, with the sidewalk around it cordoned off as if it was being demolished. 

Lest we forget, the Chalerm Kiad was where Sia Charoen cut his teeth in the movie exhibition business. Historically speaking, it was ground-zero of the Poonworaluk theater empire. 

The Sri Nakorn Paphayon - Hang Chat district, Lampang province, Thailand

In northern Thailand, precious little of a stand-alone cinema culture remains intact. Of all the 16 provinces classified as the north, there are a meager two stand-alone theaters still operating, both of which are owned by Thana Cineplex, a subsidiary of Pra Nakorn Films. That's a paltry number considering that over the years there have probably been around 100 movie theaters in Thailand's north.

With no business to host, demolition has been the norm among this dead facet of popular culture. As a rule of thumb, the older the theater, the less likely it is to be standing today. This formula has ensured that in all my northerly expeditions I have only encountered one theater built prior to the 1960's. They're simply hard to come by. 

This past November, a second granddaddy was added to the list. Following a tip, I motored over to Hang Chat district, Lampang in search of the Sri Nakorn Paphayon. 

The Sri Nakorn Paphayon

The Sri Nakorn Paphayon faces onto Hang Chat's main thoroughfare, diverging architecturally from the  avenue's other structures by little more than the free-standing signage perched at its summit. Main street's visual uniformity has a soothing aspect to it, retaining the aesthetic conservatism of mid-20th century provincial Thailand. The inventory of buildings is composed of a discernibly older stock than most small towns in the Thai north, a fact that was all but confirmed by the Sri Nakorn's welcoming owners. 

  

Thongsuk (right) and Rampeung Weehayanwut, owners of the abandoned Sri Nakorn Paphayon, standing in front of the theater's side entrance.

Thongsuk Weehayanwut and his wife Rampeung have looked after the Sri Nakorn Paphayon since they inherited it from Thongsuk's father. In reality, however, the "looking after" they do these days is not very involved. In the eyes of Thongsuk, his inheritance is a bit of a white elephant. 

The Weehayanwut's property in Hang Chat is expansive. Entering through a driveway beside the old theater leads to their industrial/residential compound, comprised of a furniture factory reminiscent of an air plane hanger, an equally large warehouse for lumber, a modest single-story office house and the family's idyllic sino-colonial style abode, appearing feudal among the towering stands of teak.  

Occupying the most commercially viable plot of land on the property is the abandoned theater, which the Weehayanwut's generously gave me a tour of.

In the theater's active years, this ticket window area was an open-air veranda, but the owner sealed it up once the theater closed.

Ticket windows and perforated masonry.

"It was an economic failure from the beginning," conceded Thongsuk, as we stumbled across the theater's debris-strewn auditorium. "My father envisioned this as being Hang Chat's most popular destination, but it didn't work out that way." 

Thongsuk's father opened the Sri Nakorn Paphayon as Hang Chat's first ever movie theater in 1957. Powering the theater by diesel generator in a time when residential electricity was reserved for wealthy urbanites, the senior Weehayanwut expected brisk ticket sales from a townsfolk lacking in entertainment options. He miscalculated.

For all intents and purposes, Hang Chat is a suburb of the much larger and economically dynamic provincial capital, Lampang. Travel between the two has been simple and unobstructed ever since the railroad connected them in the early 1920's. As a result, Thongsuk explained, "we were never able to attract large crowds, because by the time a film made its way up here, all the townsfolk and people from the surrounding villages had already gone to see it at one of the bigger theaters in Lampang."

Ticket window ironwork.

The auditorium of the Sri Nakorn Paphayon. The ceiling rafters are made of timber, as are all doors and windows. The walls of the structure are made of poured concrete.

Projection room given over to storage.

The Weehayanwut's closed down the perennial money pit about 40 years ago without ever attempting to repurpose it. Today, it sits on the side of the road in the heart of old Hang Chat, serving as a barrier to the rest of their property and not much else.

"Frankly, if I had an opportunity to  replace it with a 7-11 or Tesco-Lotus, I'd tear it down," admitted Thongsuk. "But I haven't been able to find a good tenant for the land."

Signage

Just a thought, but 7-11 or Tesco-Lotus might be able to ever so slightly improve their corporate image if one of them moved in, rehabbed the front portion and used it for retail. 

Better yet, being that coffee shops are all the rage across northern Thailand these days, the street side portion of the building, consisting of the veranda and the space above, would make a most salubrious place to sip a brew. 

Noting that a) it matches architecturally with most of the other old building on the street, b) its structural integrity is sound, c) its identifying details like the original free-standing signage is intact and d) (in certain regards) it's a local landmark, there's no reason to tear it town. 

Movies fit for a King

Wise Kwai's Bangkok Cinema Scene is promoting a film series being organized by the Thai Film Archive, which features a selection of nine vintage movies that the King of Thailand watched in a public movie theater over the years.

For movie lovers in the Bangkok area, this is not to be missed.

                                          

Maybe I'm making things up in my head, but the theme of the event seems to have a protectionist undertone to it; sort of a soft-sell method of promoting the Scala and Lido theaters for preservation. Hopefully each screening will list the name and location of the theater that H.M.K patronized.

Burmese movie-going in 1954

Nice post on an interesting blog about Burmese cinema and movie-going in the 1950's. The author takes a very thoughtful approach that entwines the socio-political aspirations of post-colonial Southeast Asia and the film industry.

A few of the theaters mentioned in the old ads are still in operation, including the Bandula Cinema in Taunggyi.

Communist-era theater in Oudomxai, Laos demolished

"Long live the Lao People's Democratic Republic," proclaimed a banner above the stage at the Lao-Viet Cultural Hall of Friendship. Directly beneath the one slogan, another read: "Long live the glory of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party."

While both LPDR and the Party are today alive and well, the Lao-Viet Cultural Hall of Friendship is no more.

Word of the communist-era theater's demise reached the SEA Theater Project thanks to a traveler who sought out the ruinous structure while passing through Oudomxai. Only the right wing of the building was standing upon arrival, he wrote.

Socialist realism in cinema form

        

Auditorium of the Lao-Viet Cultural Hall of Friendship

A gift from the Vietnamese government to their comrades in the city of Oudomxai, the theater was built during the height of Laos' short-lived experiment with a centrally planned economy. By 1986, the commune system was completely abandoned on the heels of "big brother" Vietnam's switch to a market economy.

Many architecture enthusiasts, loath to the bulky plainness inherent in socialist realism architecture, will welcome the loss of the Lao-Viet Cultural Hall of Friendship. Personally, I look at such buildings as symbolic of the ideals, or lack thereof, of the times in which they were contracted. Despite its "ugliness," the building had worth, if only in its instructiveness. Its demolition is indeed a loss.

Laos never built much in the way of socialist realism to begin with. Now one of the finest examples of it in the north of the country is no more.

The Lao-Viet Cultural Hall of Friendship, 1981-2012.

Click here and here for some older posts about the theater.