‘A Useful Ghost’: Till dust do us part

Vedant Chandel

All humans carry stories, many of which outlive them. They are carried forward through the threads of memory, narrated and cherished by those who come after. But in the intentionally absurdist world of debut director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, memory becomes a fistful of construction-waste dust, waiting to be gobbled up by vacuum cleaners.

Even the vacuum cleaners in ‘A Useful Ghost’ are not just mechanical tools that the urban landscape has come to depend on. They go far and beyond, embodying the spirits of loved ones, dead wives, parents and even autocratic regimes. What calls for attention is Boonbunchachoke’s distinctive use of magic realism and farce.

From the moment the film’s framing device, credited as the casually subversive Academic Ladyboy, brings home a haunted vacuum cleaner, the viewer is sucked (pun intended) into the filmmaker’s intriguing world — one with coughing machines, foul-mouthed monks, recliners that double as electrocution chairs and so on. In fact, it takes an entire half for any sort of narrative to take semblance. Until then, the audience watches a dead wife’s ghost disrupt the dynamics of a family that’s well and truly part of the Thai elite.

That’s where the film is at the most robust. The director has an obvious flair for comedy. “That’s not how you use a vacuum cleaner,” says a character in a sleazy riot of a scene early. Standing inches from her is a monk, with his jaw floored. You cannot not love how the filmmaker subverts multiple tropes with one single scene. There’s plenty more of where that came from up until the midway mark, which is where the tone shifts, and decisively so.

The viewer is reminded of the darker chapters in contemporary Thai history, the violence that pervaded the 2010s in particular. In fairness though, Boonbunchachoke begins dropping hints of an uncomfortable theme right from the start. The comedic scenes are almost always followed up with visceral markers like a splatter of blood, authoritarian figures snooping on unsuspecting characters, eerie hospital halls and so on.

Cinematographer Pasit Tandaechanurat’s camerawork and Chaibovon Seelukwa’s background score, too, go from dreamy to dreadful with a jarring disregard for convention. Just like the frequent silent era-style iris shot transitions — outdated otherwise, but feeling just right for the film.

Unfortunately, the second half of the black comedy-drama offers much less room for the comedy and digs deeper into the drama. It stays sharp in its dissection of human nature, but the weight of the subject matter takes away from the fun, for the lack of a better word, genre-blending experience.

Throughout the tonal inconsistencies, the performances anchor the film. Donning a ghost costume yet another time, Davika Hoorne manages to be a revelation as the titular ghost. Stripped of all stylish embellishments, she brings a perverse energy essential for the role. Her smile is comforting yet unsettling. Apasiri Nitibhon, too, is phenomenal. Both a perpetrator and a victim of the politics of the times, her character is possibly the only one with a redemption arc and real-life implications.

The film’s exploration of queerness is not reduced to a label. Relationships between humans, humans and ghosts, all fall under the blanket, and actors Wisarut Homhuan, Wanlop Rungkumjad and Witsarut Himmarat, seemingly, understood the assignment.

At its core, ‘A Useful Ghost’ works as a powerful love letter to love itself. Love that stands the test of violence and forced erasure.

Canadian poet Anne Carson once wrote, “You remember too much, my mother said to me recently. Why hold onto all that? And I said, where can I put it down?” With his debut feature, Boonbunchachoke tries to answer that question. We put it down in memories. Sure, sometimes they are scattered like dust, too weak to fight power and vacuum cleaners. But when you turn memories into stories for others, they find a new home.