A Useful Ghost
Fueled by love and anarchy, this Thai film is like a vacuum cleaner that’s swallowed genre after genre – only to cough up a vengeful horror comedy and a lustful ghost romance hybrid.
Few films capture the spirit of Love & Anarchy more vividly than the Thai film A Useful Ghost.
Following the death of a factory worker, a multi-layered saga begins to unfold around the family that owns a vacuum cleaner factory. The story is filled with ghosts who inhabit machines, returning to the living fueled by passionate love or smoldering revenge. The plot revolves around the tender love story between the family’s son March and Nat, his ghostly wife who inhabits a vacuum cleaner. The rigid views on love held by the family and the surrounding society are put to the test when March is found romancing the vacuum cleaner in various places.
Starting as a silly horror comedy about the clash between the Buddhist spiritual world and exploitative capitalism, the story gradually develops into a passionate ghost romance, eventually reaching the intensity of a revenge film. Behind the audiovisual whimsy and narrative tones lie profound reflections on love and lust, bitterness and death, and the revolutionary force opposing a narrow, profit-driven mindset.
Brimming with love and anarchy, this cornucopia of genres seems made to be savoured among the passionate R&A audience!
Pöly Julkunen (translated by Pauliina Jännes)
Trailer
