THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

History through the peepholes

History through the peepholes

The Thai Film Archive aims to entertain and educate with its new Muang Maya Mini Movie Town

After visiting the Thai Film Archive with her school, one kindergarter was so impressed that she went home and told her parents that she simply had to go there again. Her mum and dad obliged, inviting the grandparents to go along too and the entire family thoroughly enjoyed their weekend of exploring the Archive’s latest attraction, the recently opened Muang Maya.

“It’s our first time here at the film archive,” the youngster’s father tells XP as his daughter tugs his arm in the direction of her favourite space, the Cinema Train, an antique railway car and steam locomotive that’s home to an exhibition about trains in movies. And the family is not the only one having a fun day out. Today an increasing number of visitors are taking advantage of the edutainment activities on offer despite the Archive’s distance from Bangkok and that the fact that the road in front of it has once again been dug up.
Literally meaning Tinseltown, Muang Maya has sprung up in the space in front of the Sri Salaya cinema and the Thai Film Museum. 
Joining the original Sri Salaya Theatre and the Thai Film Museum in the yellow building, Muang Maya offers visitors a chance to watch a movie in much the same way as their ancestors did a century ago. 
Inspired by Muang Boran, the “Ancient City” in Samut Prakan which has replicas of historic Siamese landmarks, Muang Maya has been developed at a cost of Bt20 million under the watchful eye of movie production designer Pawas Sawatchaiyamet – or Saksiri Chantarangsri as he used to be known – who worked with Pen-ek Ratanaruang on “Headshot” and “Nymph”.
“It’s a kind of like Universal Studios but on a tiny scale,” says Archive chief Dome Sukhavongse. “Muang Maya represents the birth of the movies.”
 The movie town starts at Pratu Sam Yord, an ornate city gate close to Mongkol Borisat, a reddish-brown wooden structure where the first films were shown in Siam in 1897. The theatre was more usually called MC Alangkarn’s Theatre, and while both cinema and gate have long disappeared from Bangkok’s landscape, the name has stuck and become synonymous with the intersection at which they once stood. “The gate symbolises the bridge that connects the movie history of Thailand and the world,” says Dome.
The first floor of the Mongkol building serves as the archive’s shop and offers a range of books, magazines and souvenirs. The information office can also be found here.
Adjacent is a couple of European-style buildings that look as they boast three stories though in reality, they only have a ground floor.
Visitors to the Kinetoscope building can experience the invention of Thomas Edison and watch a 60-second movie through a contraption known as a Kinetoscope, which was designed for one person at a time to enjoy a film by peering through a peephole at the top of the device. The archive has 10 of these old-fashioned wonders and it costs Bt10 a go.
The Nickelodeon cinema is dedicated to showing motion pictures from cinema’s early days. While the audiences back in the day paid 5 cents for a little flicker, it now costs Bt5 to see a film that runs for about 10 minutes. It’s decorated just like an old-time cinema and can seat 40.
Another part of Muang Maya is devoted to the Auguste and Louis Lumi
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