Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke's "Useful Ghost," a political fable about Thailand

THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” - WHY NOT

Because his apartment is overflowing with dust, a man goes to an appliance store to buy a vacuum cleaner. Once home, the appliance turns out to be defective. A peroxide-laced and very sexy repairman soon rings his doorbell: tension mounts between the two men, who sit down at a table while the repairman tells a story about vacuum cleaners and ghosts, which will become the main plot of the film.

A story within a story then opens: March, the son of the director of a vacuum cleaner factory, has been depressed since the tragic death of his wife, a victim of dust pollution. But her soul is soon reincarnated... in a vacuum cleaner. March adapts very well to this new appearance, under the disapproving eye of his family, who have also had to endure the visit of another ghost: a worker, the victim of a work accident, who has returned to haunt the family factory to taunt the employers responsible for his death.

The first feature film by Thai director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, Useful Ghost, was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes Critics' Week . This is an understandable distinction, given that the film, even in its high-concept script, demonstrates an enormous appetite for fiction and ambition. In fact, one gets the impression of seeing a young filmmaker drawing on a whole swathe of international auteurism, dressed to the nines: from Yorgos Lanthimos to Spike Jonze, from Quentin Dupieux to Bong Joon-ho. The same placidity of the direction, the same taste for the absurd and the fixed shots composed with manic care.

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