Movie: Good Morning Laos

Neo · February 15, 2008

The first real Lao movie in 33 years, 'Sabaidee Luang Prabang' could prove the launch pad for a cultural revival

The country was once an ambiguity. Now it's a hot bed of fascination, a place with an oddly magnetic pull, so close yet so far, so similar yet so foreign. Forever landlocked but no longer shell-shocked, the Lao People's Democratic Republic has shrugged off its enigmatic past and looks set for a present full of hurly-burly. Nowadays, Bangkok hipsters find few cities cooler than Luang Prabang; our new foreign minister plans a visit to Vientiane next week; the nation will host the next SEA Games; the R3A highway now links Thailand and China via Laos, touted as the new golden economic triangle.

Suddenly remembered after years of being forgotten, Laos is also now ready to have some fun. So how about the first "real" Lao movie in 33 years?

Principally a curiosity, but hopefully a seed of cultural revival, Sabaidee Luang Prabang is going through the final phase of post-production in a Bangkok editing room. The film bears the Lao flag, but its true lineage is a heady cross-pollination of different personalities and cultures: Sabaidee Luang Prabang is co-directed by Kiev-educated Laotian Anusorn Sirisakda and Thai filmmaker Sakchai Deenan (who's originally from the province of Surin in the Northeast), and stars red-hot Bangkok-based Laotian-Australian actor Ananda Everingham and Vientiane beauty queen Khamlek Pallawong.

The money came from both sides of the Mekhong with Lao Art Media, a major record label in Laos, making its first foray into moviemaking together with its Thai partner, Sparta, a production house in the Laos-bordering province of Ubon Ratchathani. So, to be precise, it should be called the first ever Lao-Thai film.

After adopting communism in 1975, Laos virtually ceased its moviemaking activities. The three films made in the past 33 years - Thung Hai Hin, Bua Daeng and Krua Payachang - were funded by the Lao and Vietnamese governments, and invariably told nationalistic stories of communist victories over foreign enemies.

"We think of Sabaidee Luang Prabang as a Lao feature film, the first to be privately funded since 1975," director Anusorn says on the phone from his Vientiane office. "We wrote the story together [with Thai director Sakchai], and the main market will be Thailand. What we want to do is show the beauty of Laos, and of course the film will greatly benefit from the growing fame of Luang Prabang.

"It's part of government policy to encourage more productions of movies and TV series, to play a role in improving the economy."

It's not just the famous city, a World Heritage site, that features in the film. Sabaidee Luang Prabang is a road movie that spans the north-south stretch of Laos, from the delta of Pak Se to the capital Vientiane and magical Luang Prabang. Ananda, seemingly the busiest actor in Thailand, plays a character loosely moulded after himself. Sorn is a Bangkok-based Laotian-Australian journalist who travels to Laos and develops a special feeling towards the country of his father (in real-life, Ananda's father is Australian, his mother Laotian) and especially towards his female guide, called Noi.

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