Directed by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke. Written by Geoffroy Grison and Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke
Household appliances become vengeful spirits in Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s A Useful Ghost, a deep-fried take on speaking truth to power and letting them know the truth will out – in this life or the next. Never forgetting, and certainly not forgiving, is not usually grounds for comedy, but with a pitch-black sense of humor and unhinged irreverence, Boonbunchachoke arrives.
It all starts with dust. Thailand’s booming, and developers are making that clear, tearing down the old to make way for malls, condos, and whatever else signifies progress in the 21st century. The resulting construction dust – a necessary evil the government says – coats everything to the annoyance of middle class citizens like Academic Ladyboy, played by Wisarut Homhuan.
He orders a vacuum cleaner to deal with the problem, but the same night he brings it home, it starts rattling off a very loud, very human cough. A repairman alights with almost supernatural speed, and tells Academic Ladyboy a story of this happening elsewhere, like a factory where a worker died and haunted the machinery to express his displeasure at the hand management played in his demise.
A Useful Ghost is as surreal as it is powerful, because what follows is a wacky, melancholy, angry, bitter, and vengeful tirade against a society plagued by corruption and the crimes committed by the elite against the common man, as well as the nefarious techniques that turn friend to foe and makes revolution that much harder.
Boonbunchachoke’s movie is one of those mercurial things that does it all: belly laughs as well as heart-wrenching moments, triumphant scenes that’ll radicalize you. It’s oddball filmmaking about a sane worldview, taking capitalism to task as well as its fascist enablers.
The result is a riot, something completely original and hard to sum up or accurately describe. What’s known is the deep-seated agony at the heart of A Useful Ghost. For a western audience, a lot of atrocities happening elsewhere go largely unnoticed. That was the case 15 years ago, when the Thai military descended upon pro-democracy protests and killed dozens, injured thousands, and disappeared scores of protesters. How do you grapple with such crimes?
A Useful Ghost is about reconciling that painful memory with hope for the future and what that future demands of the present, so the early laughs give way to the sincere anger hiding underneath the mirth. This is sparkling humanitarian filmmaking, keen criticism, and a squirt of battery acid that leaves an indelible mark.
Mikkel Frederiksen 