| Mekong Express Home | - Laos Home - | Editor for Mekong Express |
 |
 |
 |
When the lights go down low in Lao
by Daniel Haber
When the day's tasks are done and the sun sinks across the Mekong filtering its last rays of light on Vientiane's dusty streets, the people in the Lao capital, like those in any other city in the world, like to go out for entertainment. While there are plenty of restaurants for a small town like Vientiane--with new upscale bistros opening up all the time to cater to the tourist overflow from Thailand--there isn't much nightlife and there aren't that many cinemas.
With the Lao P.D.R. having no film industry of its own to speak of, and the importation of all foreign films (except for Thai) too costly, add to that the government restrictions on censorship and a regulation that all dialogue must be in Lao, the scarcity of movie theaters in the country isn't hard to figure out. Since dubbing and sub-titling into Lao (a small country of only 4-5 million speakers, with 17 million more Lao speakers residing in Thailand) is prohibitively expensive, so exhibitors must provide translations of the screen dialogue for readers to speak live over the PA system during the projection.
While all these hurdles would discourage any ordinary entrepreneur trying to make an honest buck in the movie exhibition business, not for the unsinkable Saychareunsouk Pathammavong, a Lao-American with a Yankee-ingrained indomitable spirit combined with Asian stubbornness, who recently returned to his hometown to take over and run the family-owned cinema after his father passed away recently.
Handsome 29-year-old Say (the y is pronounced like I), who looks like he could be a movie star himself, had left his Lao homeland when he was a kid for education in America shortly after his father had leased away the family's Odeon Cinema. The lessee, a Thai businessman, turned out to be crooked when he tried to renege on returning back ownership to the cinema after the 25-year lease expired earlier this year. Only after litigation in the Lao courts was the Odeon rightfully returned to Say's family. During the early days of the Lao P.D.R., as Say's father rightly predicted, the Odeon had been taken over by the government and renamed the Viengchan and used as a venue for government functions, cultural shows, and propaganda movies.
Now since the liberalization of the economy and the encouragement of foreign investment, Say is investing his own personal savings, not only in restoring the 300-seat Odeon Rama to its former glory, but hopes to do the "impossible" (a word in a fool's dictionary, but not in Say's) to make a profitable commercial venture out of it as well.
The main problem Say faces is finding the right films to show. At the moment, his options are limited to fairly recent Thai films and Chinese. But he would like to show other foreign films as well, and not just Hollywood actioners. He has plans to bring in Bertolucci's Little Buddha which should be of interest to this predominantly Buddhist country. But Clint Eastwood fans will be disappointed as no Westerns are allowed in. Apparently gunfights at the OK corral are not OK with government censors who had no problem with Conan The Barbarian. And to show that he was determined to comply with government regulations, Say brought me upstairs to the little booth next to the projectionist where four readers sit hunched over scripts reading simultaneous Lao translations to the original dialogue which must be switched off whenever a character speaks.
Like the biplanes parked on the tarmac of Vientiane's Wattay Airport, the vintage Russian projectors are also museum pieces such as I once saw in New York's Museum of the Moving Image. Undaunted, Say hopes to make his family-run cinema the best in all of Indochina and is on the constant lookout for new equipment and movies to screen. In fact, the night I first met him, he was to fly off early the next morning for Vietnam to scout out a new sound system. Already, Say has a reputation for the best popcorn in town which is freshly popped in the lobby and a bargain at only 100 or 200 kip per bag. Although it will be a while before crunching popcorn catches on with Lao audiences who prefer to munch on black watermelon seeds which make a helluva mess to clean up.
His Chinese-American wife, Marissa, hopes to open a coffee shop in the spacious theater lobby. Serving food comes natural to both Say and his pretty wife (who was brought up in Thailand), as they both used to serve out Thai dishes to Washingtonians in a popular D.C. Thai restaurant (where they first met).
Fashionably dressed like a restauranteur himself, Say changed the CD and surveys the scene as the loud music and bright lights begin to attract the first curious customers from the deepening dusk outside. Like moths drawn to luminescence, some schoolboys are drawn into the well-lit lobby, where they eye the lobby cards, and are the first to line up the 300 kip (about a half-dollar U.S.) window manned by Say's brother-in-law.
Is Say glad to be back in his hometown running the local Bijou? You bet. As he stated in a recent newspaper interview, "Of course this is Laos, and despite all the difficulties, all Laotians should try to develop their country."
"Someday," he continues with I-have-a-dream determination, "I hope to make my own movies." But more to the present, Say would like to first establish a film society for promoting film awareness amongst Laotian audiences. Meanwhile, the Odeon Rama is ready to entertain a new generation of Lao film-goers, and as the country's largest cinema, the hall is also available for hire for cultural programs and private functions. For more information contact Say at the cinema on Talat Leng Road in Vientiane's Chanthabouly district or telephone 214613.