When Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke became the first Thai director to win the Critics Week’s Grand Prize in May, he paid an unusual tribute. “I would like to dedicate this award to all the ghosts in Thailand,” he told the audience.
Ratchapoom’s film, A Useful Ghost, tells the story of a man whose wife dies after falling ill from dust pollution, and whose spirit returns by possessing a vacuum cleaner. It is a quirky story full of symbolism and dark humour that explores power and political oppression in Thailand.
“One of the main intentions for the film would be [to talk about] how we deal with injustice in the past,” says Ratchapoom. “There’s so many people who suffered, who got punished, who disappeared,” he adds, referring to Thailand’s turbulent political history, marked by military coups, protests and deadly crackdowns.
A Useful Ghost’s success comes at a time of increased optimism about Thailand’s film industry. Domestic productions are increasingly driving box office sales, claiming a greater share of ticket sales than Hollywood movies, and achieving success abroad. This includes the 2024 release of How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, which broke records for Thai film in neighbouring countries, and became the first Thai film shortlisted for the international feature film at the Oscars.
The Thai government, keen to foster the country’s film sector, has launched a $6.4 million film fund to support productions. Censorship rules are also being relaxed - though content that may affect the monarchy remains prohibited. The powerful royal family is shielded from criticism by a strict lese majesty law, which carries a jail sentence of up to 15 years.
Ratchapoom says he is unsure what kind of reaction his film will generate when it premiers in Thailand. “I think it will cause some discussion,” he said.
The film touches on history some would prefer to forget but which, over recent years, younger people have grown increasingly keen to uncover.
“Trying to unearth what is censored or suppressed is one way to fight the authoritarian,” said Ratchapoom. “History is one of the battlefields.”
Ratchapoom, 38, grew up in a Thai Chinese family in Bangkok, in a household full of film. His father, who had a small business, was obsessed with watching movies, mostly from the US and Hong Kong. Ratchapoom would pour over his dad’s film magazines in his spare time, and seek out international releases at pirate DVD shops in Bangkok’s Chatuchak market. He went on to study film at Chulalongkorn University, in Bangkok, and worked as a TV script writer before gaining international recognition with his short film Red Aninsri; Or, Tiptoeing on the Still Trembling Berlin Wall, about a transgender sex worker who goes undercover as a spy, which won the Junior Jury award at Locarno film festival in 2020.
Ratchapoom began writing A Useful Ghost in 2017, three years after the military seized power in a coup, arresting its critics, and pressuring news outlets into self-censorship. The film’s obsession with memory and mind control is inspired by a creeping trend that emerged under the junta: the destruction of monuments commemorating the 1932 revolution, when the absolute monarchy was overthrown and democracy introduced to Thailand. One plaque, which had laid on the ground in Bangkok for decades, was replaced in 2017 with a new monument that read: “To love and respect the Buddhist trinity, one’s own state, one’s own family, and to have a heart faithful to your monarch, will bring prosperity to the country”.
In A Useful Ghost the destruction of monuments creates dust, a reference to Thailand’s continued air pollution crisis. But dust is also a symbol for “powerless people who are voiceless”, said Ratchapoom.
Thai filmmakers have a long history of using metaphors and symbolism to allude to sensitive political topics.
It wasn’t until the pandemic that Ratchapoom was able to put together the first draft of the screenplay. By then, youth-led pro-democracy protests had filled the streets, demanding the removal of the former junta leader, and then prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, and breaking a major taboo to make an unprecedented call for reforms of the country’s powerful monarchy. Protest leaders proclaimed that the “ceiling had been lifted”; the unspeakable was now being said.
At the time, Ratchapoom wondered if his own film would appear old-fashioned, given how outspoken younger generations had become. Ironically, in the past few years, such expansions of freedom of expression have been reversed, he said, adding: “Suddenly, it’s not so obsolete. The ceiling has been lowered again.” Many protest leaders are in prison, facing charges or in exile.
Thailand is no longer ruled by former military generals, following elections in 2023, but Ratchapoom does not feel hopeful about Thailand’s politics. Under the junta, there was at least a sense that “there’s every reason to fight, to resist”, he said. Such momentum has dissipated.
He does, however, feel more hopeful about the state of Thailand’s film industry. “I believe that in the next few years there will be more exciting projects, films or series coming off Thailand,” he said.
The film’s premier in Thailand and elsewhere is yet to be confirmed. Ratchapoom hopes it will open fresh debate. “I hope these things that I talk about - the silenced and suppressed past, the injustice in the past – could be brought up or unearthed and people will start like talking about it again.”
