A ghost vacuum cleaner sounds like a standard horror fare, but in the hands of Thai director ratchapoom boonbunchachoke, it turns into a sly commentary on pollution, power dynamics and the cost of living in Bangkok.

Boonbunchachoke's debut featured Thailand's return to the prestigious music festival after being selected for a week for Cannes critics.

"I'm really excited. I'm happy, but nervous, because it's a big event for me," Boonbunchachoke told type. “Critics Week is the ideal platform for movies to discover it.”

After March, “a useful ghost” mourns his wife Nath after death in dust pollution. When her spirit returns by possessing a vacuum, their unconventional human relationships face resistance from his family. To prove her worth and their love, Nat offered to clean a factory that was haunted by the ghost of a worker whose death shut down the action.

The film cleverly reconceives ghost stories as satirical romantic comedy, a tradition that deliberately deviates from Thailand’s famous horror film tradition. "Thailand is known for its horror movies, and we also have a genre that may not travel abroad - horror comedy," Boonbunchachoke explained. "But with this movie, I try not to follow the convention of both paths. My first thought was to know that there may be ghosts in contemporary society. Do they need to work? Because living costs are now very expensive."

This unique approach reflects the director’s preference for humor rather than horror. "I'm a funny guy, not someone who wants to scare people," he said.

The film addresses Thailand’s pressing environmental problems, especially dust pollution, which has become a serious problem over the past decade. "We have dust pollution every winter. People will start complaining about the quality of dust nearby, especially in Bangkok and the north." The movie's Thai title has a dual meaning in the local language, and "dust" also means "people without power."

"Dust is something we don't want in our house. People don't want ghosts in the house." "The ghost is someone who is dead and should have disappeared, but it still continues."

The industrial workspace in the film is a compelling allegorical context for a wider range of social issues. The director noted: “The factory itself is a very visual environment for labor exploitation and industrialization, which fully illustrates how manufacturing itself can cause pollution and how workers risk their lives due to working conditions.”

A co-production between Thailand (185 films), France (Haut Les Mains), Singapore (Momo Film Co) and Germany (Mayana film), the film benefits from international collaboration, although not without challenges. An unexpected boon is to work with Singaporean industrial designers and work in the critical vacuum cleaning room of the film. "I never thought about working with actual industrial designers because I think they might emphasize functionality more than aesthetics," Boonbunchachoke admitted. "But he came up with some very strange designs, and I was surprised."

Movie star Davika Hoorne is Nat, and for some time, Hosarmat is Nittibon of Nittibon, who sleeps with Runmumd Roadkumdha like Suman.

Teochew-Hainanes Descent's Boonbunchachoke graduated from the Film Department of Chulalongkorn University. His short film "Red Aninsri; or, tip foot on the trembling Berlin wall" won the junior jury award in Locarno in 2020. In his daily work, he served as the screenwriter of television.

"A useful ghost" represents Boonbunchachoke's first feature film. He hopes this will challenge the view of Thai films. "I hope people can focus on Thailand again. This movie is very different from the movie that people expect. This movie can expand how people think of Thai cinemas and the stories it can tell."

As for the next step, Boonbunchachoke is already collecting his second feature idea. "If the film had some success, maybe the second movie would be easier to make," he said.