Exhibit at Jim Thompson Art Center

I'm proud to announce that 32 images from the S.E. Asia Movie Theater Project are currently on display at Bangkok's renowned Jim Thompson Art Center. The exhibition - entitled TRACES - is comprised of work by 10 artists from across Southeast Asia, under the theme of the communal sharing of culture within ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations). By 2015, ASEAN will be ramping up efforts to make itself a more cohesive regional political entity.  A more detailed description from the curators at Jim Thompson explains:

This exhibition, TRACES,  aims to serve as a mechanism and platform for Thais and ASEAN members to learn about the history of SEA, ASEAN and neighboring countries through contemporary artworks and research in sociology. It focuses on issues related to the social memory and public sphere and also reinvestigates the history of the Vietnam–American war, as well as the national building processes of Singapore and Malaysia. It aims to help us to get to know each other and our history through contemporary art, to help us understand who we are and to see the communal sense of Southeast Asia, so we can continue our collaboration in the future. This exhibition intends to raise questions about Southeast Asia’s sensus communis. What do we have in common? What kind of communal senses have we shared since the last century or before? What kind of history and social memory do we still retain? What did we forget, remember, question? It will reinvestigate social space and public memory, history and how individuals have reacted to stagnant society as well as to social changes. Works range from photography, research-based projects, video documentary and mockumentary by 10 artists from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and the USA. 

If you're in the Bangkok area, this is not to be missed! For those who've never visited the beautiful Jim Thompson House, this is the perfect opportunity to do so.

It will be running from July 14th through October 31st.

Below are a sample of 9 images out of the 32 currently on display from the Southeast Asia Movie Theater Project archive.

Aung Mingala Cinema - Dawei, Burma

Lak Meuang Cinema - Kalasin, Thailand

Seno Rama - Seno, Savanakhet Province, Laos

Shae Saung Cinema - Yangon, Burma

Amarin Rama - Suwan Khalok, Sukothai Province, Thailand

Oscar's Prostitutes

Rama Ticket Taker

Security

The Lone Viewer

The Prince Cineplex - Kalasin, Thailand

Movie-going in Thailand is alive and well. Just take a look at the glut of costly Hollywood blockbusters that routinely edge out domestic productions for screen time. If the market were weak, it's doubtful that Hollywood would go through the effort. 

Hollywood dominance at the Thai box-office is ensured by arrangements with local chain exhibitors and their powerful distribution arms, keeping theaters stocked with American product. With the ability to stifle competition by outspending the little guy in every aspect, or supplying them with movies unsuitable for local tastes, the chain theaters have all but cornered the Thai movie-going market. 

Paramount to this movie-watching paradigm shift has been a drastic change in the form and architecture of movie theaters. Across the country, the mammoth single screen theaters built during the 20th century have gradually given way to the multiplex variety, a trend typical in most fully or newly industrialized countries. 

In town after town, locally owned stand-alone theaters have either closed, or clung to life by sheer determination. But in Thailand's northeast, at least, local movie exhibitors still hold their own.The Prince Cineplex in Kalasin is one among over a dozen Isan Theaters that has bucked the trend. 

A weekday afternoon spent exploring it gave some clues as to why.

Though looking a bit shabby from the outside, the Prince abounds with inner virtues that help it stay in the game. In the realm of comforts, it is in league with anything the highly capitalized multiplex chains are equipped with, short of the exclusive box seating popular among the pampered Bangkok elite.

When it was built in the early 1970's under the name of the Kalasin Rama, the Prince had a single, enormous screen and a seating capacity in the range of 1,000. In the late 1990's, the Khon Kaen-based Prince purchased the old Kalasin Rama and turned its giant auditorium into two smaller ones - a procedure which allowed them to diversify the film fair shown at any given time and attract a wider audience.

As the new and improved Prince Cineplex boomed, it siphoned ticket sales from other Kalasin theaters, including the older, smaller, but much prettier Lak Meuang Cinema. When questioned about why an elegant theater like the Lak Meuang had gone out of business, Prince manager Mr. Preecha responded glibly, "because of us."

Behind the current sign stands the original cut-out letters announcing the Kalasin Rama.

Management claimed that the theater was designed by the same architect who did Ban Phai's Pyramid Theater

Indeed, with no competitors in the market, the Prince Cineplex does brisk business. On a Friday afternoon, I found the Prince's open-air lobby flooded with teens and adolescents, most still in school uniform, waiting to see the latest hits.

Ticket taker's rare reprieve 

Anxious crowds clamor for tickets

Queued up

Theater No. 1

Giddy teen laughter rippled through the theater during the screening of the Thai romantic comedy "30+ Singles on Sale." Yet behind the sounds of youthful joy, the din of coming doom can be heard - ever so slightly - creeping through the paddy fields.

Ushering them into theater No. 2

A relic from a bygone era: the movie trailer truck, still in use at the Prince Cineplex. 

In the wake of Thailand's industry-crippling floods of 2011, rumors are circulating about a master plan to relocate Thailand's industrial belt to the Northeast. An integrated highway system and lots of open land makes the Northeast - in the minds of country planners - ideal for hosting the country's lucrative industrial complexes. And with fewer waterways than the central plains, flooding should be much less of a concern.

If these plans are enacted, Isan, as the Northeast is colloquially known, will become flooded with investments. Though good for the wallets of local strongmen and, perhaps, industrial laborers, mom and pop businesses will likely face economic hardship, as the national chains seek to capitalize on the region's new-found wealth. Isan's collection of independently owned theaters, then, will likely go the way of their ilk in all other parts of the country.

But for now the Prince Cineplex is alive and well, providing cinematic entertainment to the youth of Kalasin one screening after another.

Only a week left to photograph Cambodia's movie theaters...

Change is tearing through Southeast Asia faster than ever. Old ways of doing things are being transformed by new technologies, growing economies and and ever evolving social mores. Even relatively recent comers to everyday life, like movie theaters, are starting to be replaced by their newer, more advanced versions. 

Nakon Phanom is one of the few places left in Thailand where one can still screen a movie in an old-fashioned, stand-alone movie theater. Located in the heart of the city, on a pedestrian friendly commercial street stands the last operating stand-alone theater in the entire province. This past November I revisited the Sri Thep Cinema in Nakon Phanom to get a few more shots of it.

Most of the Sri Thep's original late-1960's early-1970's Thai decor remains intact... 

 

The free-standing letters once perched on the roof are missing...

...but from its streamlined wooden poster-cases resting upon a glazed brick wall...

...to the unusual drop ceiling in front of the auditorium entrance...

...and the stylish wooden poster cases in the stairwell, almost all its original detail still remains.

Theaters like this are few and far between. Most of those standing today will not be in existence 5 or 10 years from now, marking the end of a distinct era in Southeast Asia's leisure culture. Ask any Thai, Burmese or Laotian who's old enough to have visited these old movie theaters in their prime and you'll be in for an ear full. In many cases, movie theaters were the most important social space in the towns and cities they stood in. 

With a little help from you, we can ensure that no matter what their fate, these old movie theaters will not be forgotten. Below is a Kickstarter campaign I've started to help raise funds for me to record and document all the remaining stand-alone movie theaters of Cambodia. Please take a moment to watch my video. If you feel moved, please share it on your own social media sites. The more people who see it, the more likely that somebody will take an interest in the work I've been dedicated to for the past 4 years and contribute to the cause. 

Just click the play symbol on the picture below, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

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.