17/05/2025 - CANNES 2025: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke reveals his exceptional talent with a highly original, funny, subtle, inventive and intelligent first feature

"There are two reasons why the dead come back: because they remember or because they have been forgotten". Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke's first feature film, A Useful Ghost [+see also:
trailer
film profile], was a major attraction in the 64th Critics' Week competition at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. But the Thai filmmaker was not content to simply sign off on a delightfully audacious and totally controlled film, for which he also wrote the (highly sophisticated) screenplay centred on dead spirits coming back to life through electrical appliances, particularly household appliances; in fact, beneath the zany patina of the subject matter, he also indulges in a ferocious political and societal satire which he wraps in a first-class visual envelope.

“The dead shouldn't mess with the living. You should join your next life”. For Suman (Apasiri Nitibhon), the regular appearance of the vengeful ghost of a deceased worker in the family factory she runs is a real economic disaster as her licence is revoked and the establishment has to close. Worse still, the phenomenon also infiltrates her private life, as Nat (Davika Hoorne), the dead wife of her son March (Witsarut Himmarat), also begins to appear, to console her grieving husband, in the form of a hoover that moves without electricity and has the gift of speech.

The whole story, seemingly delirious but taken very seriously by all the protagonists (which reinforces the ultra-comical effect of the film), is narrated by the strange repairman Krong (Wanlop Rungkumjud), who has come to help out with magical speed a young man (Wisarut Homhuan) who has bought a hoover that is failing more than strangely. But what happens? What's to be done? Can good ghosts or bad ghosts live with humans? And what about the dreams of the living, through which the dead cling to their former earthly existence?

"Take time to think". Extremely funny and wildly original, A Useful Ghost tackles a multitude of philosophical and symbolic subjects about love, family, bereavement, depression, individual selfishness to the detriment of others, difference, etc. under the surface and under the veneer of its caustic humour. And “all these jokes were just a foretaste of the main purpose of this meeting”, since in its final stretch the film becomes clearly political, evoking the establishment of an Orwellian society of surveillance and repression (with electroshock therapy), with references to the massacres of opponents by state forces at Thammasat University in 1976 and during the 2010 demonstrations. It's an extraordinarily rich cocktail that's also visually brilliant, with a wide artistic palette (cross-fades, iris openings and closings, a wide variety of framings, special effects, etc.). In short, this is clearly an exceptional talent making his debut on the Croisette.

A Useful Ghost was produced by Thai company 185 Films and co-produced by Haut Les Mains Productions (France), Momo Film (Singapore) and Mayana Films (Germany). Best Friend Forever will be handling international sales.

(Translated from French)