Review: A Useful Ghost

Director: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke

Stars: Davika Hoorne, Apasiri Nitibhon, Witsarut Himmarat

I have a movie kink and I’m not ashamed to admit it. It’s the ever-growing microgenre of movies about possessed inanimate objects. Often but not always confined to horror, it’s a surefire way of getting me on side. From the deft surrealism of Quentin Dupieux’s killer-tyre movie Rubber or Amanda Kramer’s superb By Design (yet to find a UK distributor (for shame!)) to deeper cuts such as Death Bed: The Bed That Eats or Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes (which details the fallout of owning an evil standard lamp), we keep coming back to the daunting idea that we – as people – are of the same worth as the objects we surround ourselves with, or that we are connected to them in ways that may disturb us.

Now, from Thailand, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke adds a slow, dreamy, gorgeously shot new addition to this collection of oddities; A Useful Ghost which details the complications that arise for a grieving young widower, March (Witsarut Himmarat), when his wife Nat (Davika Hoorne) returns to him as a possessed vacuum cleaner. That may sound silly and whimsical, but the calm, deadpan delivery manages to swerve the wacky and, unexpectedly, Boonbunchachoke finds ways to embellish this idea into something with surprising political urgency.

The story of Nat and March is told within the film by a serene vacuum repair man named Krong (Wanlop Rungkumjad) who arrives with unnerving swiftness to aid an Academic Ladyboy (Wisarut Homhuan) at his modest apartment. The telling is slow but compelling, with further revelations occurring at this topsoil level of competing dual narratives. The Academic Ladyboy indulges the tall tale out of evident sexual attraction, but this isn’t the only reflection of queerness within the film, and the oppression or relegation of same sex happiness is one of A Useful Ghost‘s spikier undercurrents.

March is the son of entrepreneurial industrialist Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon), whose appliance factory has already been the scene of a vengeful haunting. Enough to warrant the withdrawal of her license. Nat’s return as a vacuum cleaner is initially deemed shocking and unsavoury by Suman. She even has her son subjected to electroshock treatment in an effort to rid him of his memories of his wife. But when Nat proves ‘useful’ – vanquishing the troublesome ghost of a queer worker and allowing the factory to reopen – her worth is re-evaluated. Finding a benefactor in Dr. Paul (Gandhi Wasuvitchayagit), a local minister of influence, Nat is coerced into helping him rid his constituency of other unwelcome spirits, including the ghosts of 200-odd protestors. Nat initially refuses to capitulate, but the couple are blackmailed, with Paul promising to remove the red tape surrounding their ability to pursue assisted parenthood.

Through this turn of events, A Useful Ghost makes some stark, sometimes unflattering observations on our moral rectitude, showcasing easy acquiescence through the excuse that everyone struggles. My pain justifies yours. The state wants nothing more than to eliminate the ghosts of its ugly history. Nat’s methodology includes reading peoples’ dreams – a clear analogy for oppressive, invasive surveillance and data-mining – as she becomes embroiled in the fascisistic suppression of the truth. She becomes a kind of union buster or class traitor. As these more serious topics take over the conversation, Boonbunchachoke increasingly replaces the ‘silly’ vacuum Nat with her human ghost, enabling a more successful level of emotional connection. But Hoorne’s performance as Nat in notable for its cold passivity. Her detachment. Even March notes that she has grown unfamiliar to him. Here, then, capitulation with the state is worse than death. Boonbunchachoke persistently mocks institutions. Even a cadre of seemingly devote monks start throwing the C-bomb around. The facade of respectability.

Of course the dehumanisation of women is a potent theme that hangs over any narrative which conflates a woman with an object, and Nat’s initial appearance as a vacuum cleaner is redolent of the objectified associations of the ‘good’ domestic wife. But as the narrative grows more expansive it crosses gender lines. An angry man possesses a fridge freezer, for instance. Until, eventually, ghosts are possessing the living and society becomes a roiling mass of restless souls toppling over one another for some semblance of justice in an unjust world. The Academic Ladyboy’s germophobia and the proliferation of dust across the neighbourhood is linked to excessive redevelopment, suggestive of aggressive forms of gentrification that also tear at the living histories that surround the Thai populus. The ensuing respiratory problems frame these developments as a literal threat-to-life.

All of which is to say that there’s a lot more here than meets the eye, or might be gleaned from an eyebrow-raising two-line synopsis. What’s delivered comes handsomely packaged at a steady, almost hypnotic pace composed of successive well-balanced frames redolent of the quality associated with Roy Andersson. Indeed, the Swedish surrealist feels like the most apt comparison for the general aura conjured here, mixing the politically charged with the casually absurd. The film even opens with a human diorama; people posed for a sculptor in a variety of guises that broadly cover notions of Thai identity – a soldier, a supplicant in prayer, a farmer, an Olympian. A Useful Ghost is not above the simple visual comedy of contrasts (short and tall) or gently humorous approaches to form (a gust of wind seems to blow one wipe across the screen).

When the dust settles (pun intended), you’re left with a disarmingly astute and slyly angry surreal satire. If it’s a lot to contend with (just crossing the 2 hour mark), it’s also a lot to admire, with a burning core of eroticised romanticism (cis and otherwise) in there to give the whole thing heart. Recommended.