OPINION

Hoping it's not 'The End' for iconic cinema

News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/03/2012

» It's hard not to peddle nostalgia when it comes to the Lido and Scala. In an age of plastic multiplexes with their garish neon signs and overpriced tickets - plus the dangerously robotic protocols of their pre-programmed staff - the two cinemas in Siam Square are a reminder of a time when movies had not been hijacked by blood-sucking consumerism. Two of the last stand-alone cinemas in Bangkok, the Lido and Scala, are movie houses, and something more: they're personal museums, the same way that movies are eternally personal. They're memory boxes, living archeological remains of this country's film-going history.