Love Is Stronger Than Death: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke on A Useful Ghost

Once upon a time in nineteenth-century Thailand, the legend of Mae Nak was born. Though many versions of the tale exist, they all speak of a love that’s stronger than death. The story goes as follows: Mae Nak, a beautiful young woman, is pregnant with her first child when her husband Mak is sent to war. When he returns from the frontline, his blissful reunion with his wife and child belies a terrible tragedy: Both Nak and her baby have died in childbirth, and they have returned as ghosts in an act of eternal devotion. Mak is only roused to this catastrophic reality when, one day, he sees Nak’s arm extend to an impossible length to pick up a dropped lime. His loyal wife, now undead, has become monstrous in his eyes.

Inspired by the same folktale, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s surreal dark comedy A Useful Ghost (2025) greets the homecoming of a perished loved one with much more enthusiasm. After her death from a respiratory disease caused by dust pollution, lovely and delicate Nat (Davika Hoorne) returns as a ghost—much to the delight of her husband March (Witsarut Himmarat). That she has taken the peculiar form of a vacuum cleaner matters little to an ecstatic man in love. Coated in slick red paint and adorned with glowing buttons, Nat’s peculiar new appearance gestures to traditional renderings of Mae Nak’s elongated limbs by way of an extending white tube, whose twisting and turning movements can mimic a gentle nod, a tender embrace, or even a passionate kiss. Nat’s supernatural capabilities, however, extend far beyond taking the form of machines. Once shunned by her husband’s relatives, she proves her worth by banishing the vengeful ghosts that haunt the family factory, a power soon exploited by a fictional head-of-state and his devious cronies.

In the same way that wartime horrors plague the original Mae Nak legend, political unrest and discontent subtly envelop Boonbunchachoke’s reincarnation of the story. Love powers Nat’s return, but for many of her fellow ghosts, their restless wanderings are spurred by righteous anger at unjust deeds. Lingering in the air, like floating apparitions, are references to real-life historical events, such as the 2010 political protests against the incumbent royalist government, and the bloody military crackdown that followed. Buried by official narratives, these moments of dissent live on in the film through the ghosts’ persistent presence, who continue to protest, even in death. That Nat and March’s story is told by two other characters, a sassy researcher known only as Academic Ladyboy (Wisarut Homhuan) and their mysterious guest Krong (Wanlop Rungkumjad), further emphasizes how memories endure, not solely through documentation, but also through oral lore.

Though A Useful Ghost is Boonbunchachoke’s debut feature, the filmmaker has also reframed Thai popular culture in his previous work, most notably in the neon-drenched short Red Aninsri; Or, Tiptoeing on the Still Trembling Berlin Wall (2020). The iconic visuals of Cold War-era Thai melodramas—lush and intense color palettes, coupled with dubbed voices—influence the film’s embrace of artifice, while there is real-world poignancy to the plot concerning a trans sex worker who, in disguise as a cis man, spies on a student activist. Similarly, A Useful Ghost—which won the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at Cannes—masters the tightrope walk between genre thrills and arthouse aesthetics to showcase a different side of Thai independent filmmaking. Calling in from Bangkok, Boonbunchachoke discusses his cinematic influences, the metaphorical power of dust, and the irresistible charm of Thai humor.

MUBI: The legend of Mae Nak has been adapted many times in Thai cinema since the 1950s. Why did you choose to draw from this story, and how did your film sit within this cinematic lineage?

RATCHAPOOM BOONBUNCHACHOKE: Prior to my first feature film, I had made several shorts inspired by Thai history. One of the methods I used was finding a historical figure, which could be either fictional or real, and then basing my short film around them. I tried to think of ways that I could subvert and reinterpret the official or mainstream version of this character. When I moved to feature directing, I used a similar approach: I looked to Thai history and popular culture for stories that might inspire me. Mae Nak is one of the most well-known ghosts in the country, and I like that the tale has been adapted so many times.

I always found her story to be quite queer. It’s about a forbidden relationship between a human and a ghost; they want to be together, but are prevented from being so by society. It’s similar to what same-sex couples have faced throughout history. The irony is that Thailand is well-known for being an LGBT-friendly country in Southeast Asia. But for people from my generation, parents would only tolerate their queer child by saying, “It’s okay that you are gay or lesbian, as long as you are a good and useful person who can contribute.” I’ve always found that conditional love and acceptance quite intriguing. These two ideas—of a human–ghost romance reframed as a queer story, and of how queer people in Thailand need to prove themselves to be accepted—were the first stepping stones for me in creating the central story.

MUBI: Davika Hoorne is one of the biggest stars in Southeast Asia. She has also previously played a version of Mae Nak in the comedy horror film Pee Mak [2013], which was a big box-office success. How did that casting come about?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: It was a lucky coincidence. When I was finishing the last draft of the script, my producer, Soros Sukhum, was working on a Netflix series called 6ixtynin9 [2023], which stars Davika. During the shooting of that show, she told him that she hadn’t been in a film for a few years, as she’s quite selective with her roles. She also said that she wanted to be in a smaller, independent film, and asked if he had something interesting that would suit her. My producer said, “I have something for you: a vacuum cleaner!” And she was like, “Oh, that’s... that’s challenging. I’ve never played a vacuum cleaner before.” After I sent her the finished screenplay, she called my producer to say she was happy to be in the film. 

MUBI: This must be a different experience for her. The acting here is very stylized and humorously deadpan. How did you approach getting that kind of performance not just from her, but also from other people in the cast? You seem to have created a self-contained universe within the film.

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: Yes, it is a self-contained universe, where people behave in a certain way that is totally not realistic. I had separate rehearsal days with different groups of cast members. I had one with Davika and Witsarut Himmarat, and another one with Wanlop Rungkumjad and Wisarut Homhuan, who play Krong and Academic Ladyboy. It was quite difficult to find the right balance. For example, Apasiri Nitibhon, who plays Nat’s mother-in-law Suman, is a really well-respected actress in Thailand. But she mostly works in television, where she is directed to be more expressive. 

In the first few days of shooting, she had a hard time convincing herself to do less. She’s really capable of that, but she just wasn’t sure if that’d be okay. If this were a TV production, she would be told to open her mouth wider, and to be more expressive. That was why, during rehearsals, we always tried to find some keywords or visual signposts to hold onto. The process was different from role to role. For Davika, we found what I would call a “default” face. It’s a kind of face where, if you don’t have anything to say, you should look like that. And when you say something with emotion, your expressions should not vary too much. Her emotions were within this very, very small range—not like normal people, who can go from being super happy to super sad or angry.

MUBI: This specific style of acting, along with the film’s self-contained universe, makes me think of films by Aki Kaurismäki and Roy Andersson. What are your cinematic influences?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: Kaurismäki is one of them, because of how he works with his colors and the way he creates his own universe that is both beautiful and occasionally realistic. Another influence would be the Portuguese filmmaker João César Monteiro. I remember reading an article about the time his cinematographer tried to set up a shot, and when Monteiro came to the set, he wasn’t happy with the result because it was too beautiful. He then sabotaged the composition and reframed the whole shot, so as to make it look “flat” and “uncinematic.” I have found it quite liberating not to be stuck with trying to be cinematic all the time.

Monteiro’s films are often shot like arthouse films: very slow, subtle, and beautiful. But he always cast himself as a dirty old man, and his films are also full of naughty and silly perversions. When we were going into production, that was one of the keywords that I used to communicate with my team. I wanted my film to look elegantly perverted or perversely elegant. Another influence, one that I haven’t mentioned enough, is Otar Iosseliani, the Georgian filmmaker. I like his films a lot. The first few minutes of A Useful Ghost were ripped off from Iosseliani’s silent comedic films. He was very good at creating allegorical images of a society. He would use just a few actors and some props, and you can understand the kind of society that his films tried to depict even in the absence of dialogue.

MUBI: It’s so interesting that you mentioned the film’s opening, because I’m intrigued by the mural in that sequence, which represents different social classes in Thailand existing in harmony. Was this modeled after the Democracy Monument?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: Absolutely. After 1932, Thailand transitioned from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy. To commemorate that, we have this Democracy Monument, and on the base of it, there’s a sculpture of people from all walks of life trying to live in the future of Thailand.

MUBI: And even though that turned out to be somewhat of a fantasy, A Useful Ghost does subtly foreground a lot of diversity in terms of skin colors, body types, and regional dialects that exist within the country. Was this variety of representation always present in the script?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: Yes, there are a lot of minority groups in the film, whether those groups are ethnic, regional, religious, or people with physical disabilities. Suman, for instance, is from the northeast. She speaks a Thai dialect that’s close to Laos. Because of that, she’s an outsider who’s discriminated against by her husband’s Thai-Chinese family. I play with this idea of how minority people are forced to become a tool for people in power, just to be accepted. They are just like the ghosts.

MUBI: Apart from the mural, there are recurring moments in the film in which characters are shot in groups or as part of a collective. There’s a visual choreography to this kind of blocking. Was it challenging to achieve these intricate shots in which you have multiple characters in one scene, each taking a very specific position? 

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: It was quite challenging, especially when working with nonactors. The factory scenes, for instance, were shot at a real factory, and the extras were actually workers. At times, they weren’t quite sure how to turn or how to walk. They mostly liked to remain stationary, so that made it easier. But I also had many discussions with my cinematographer prior to shooting. I wanted the film to look very composed and stylized, so whenever we went to a location, we would shoot a lot of B-roll. My team and I would take photos of ourselves, kind of posing, so that we knew how a scene was going to work when we reshot with real actors.

MUBI: What was the location for the electroshock room? Was that a real place as well?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: That’s a real place, and there’s a very Southeast Asian anecdote behind it. I wrote the electroshock room into the screenplay, but I didn’t know what it would look like on screen. My location team tried to find a laboratory in Bangkok and in the nearby cities, but by the time we started shooting, we still didn’t have it. And then one of my friends, who didn’t work on the film, is a screenwriter who also reads tarot cards...

MUBI: Ohhhh.

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: She read the tarot cards, and she was like, “Oh, you need to pay respect to Ganesha.” There’s one very popular Ganesha shrine in Bangkok, so I went there to pay my respects. One week later, my location team found the place. The room is inside a university and is actually used for testing electric cars. You drive a car inside, and then they radiate some weird waves to see if, after the experiment, the car still works.

MUBI: It looks super sci-fi.

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: Very, very sci-fi. I would never have been able to imagine this kind of place.

MUBI: I also really love Nat’s blue suit in the film. It almost looks like a sculpture that can shape-shift, depending on the camera angle. How did that costume design come about?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: I chose the color blue because it’s quite a heavy tone. I was also fascinated with those 1980s office uniforms, with the ultrawide shoulder pads that look so unnatural. I like the idea that the ghost returns to work, and that the ghost is something out of time. The person has already died, but instead of being gone forever, they return, so they’re no longer in the correct time. They have formed another time. That’s why the suit looks like it’s from another era. It also looks heavy, as if the person who wears it is carrying a lot of weight.

MUBI: The color coordination between the outfits worn by March’s aunties and uncles is also really cool. The relatives look like a Greek chorus of disappointment. Was that intentional as well?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: Yes, I think it came from my costume department. The designers wanted to emphasize the outsider status of Suman. She’s with the aunties and uncles, yet she always wears something different. It’s like she’s not in the group chat. While they are all coordinated, she is left out.

MUBI: I’m also curious about the design of the vacuum possessed by Nat. It’s so stylish. If Davika Hoorne were to be a vacuum, that’s exactly what she would look like. How was it conceived?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: My Singaporean coproducer mentioned that she knows someone who knows someone who just won an award for designing vacuum cleaners. Initially, I was a little bit concerned about collaborating with an engineer over a creative designer. He wasn’t from the film world. He didn’t watch films. I was worried that he would design something too practical.

In our first meeting, I talked to him about the concepts of the story. I also told him to watch Jacques Tati’s films. A few weeks later, he had watched the films and came back with six designs that were really wonderful. I picked this one because our nickname for this model was Soft Obedience. It has a shape that makes it look like it is bending, paying respect, or nodding, which fits with my idea of ghosts being useful and compliant.

MUBI: And how was it operated on set?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: We had two shells. One was used as a stand-in. The other had a motor inside, which we could control like a toy car. In the scenes where she moves around, that’s the actual vacuum running. But in close-ups where her tube is moving, that is puppeteered by technicians, who are then erased in postproduction.

MUBI: So there’s very minimal or no CGI involved?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: No CGI. I always intended the effects to be very practical. I was quite surprised, too, at how well the vacuum expresses a whole range of emotions.

MUBI: The question of so-called hygiene recurs throughout the plot. In the eyes of the powerful, dust, ghosts, as well as working-class and queer people are considered to be, in some way,  “unclean.” How did dust become a source of inspiration for you?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: In Thailand, we have been suffering from air pollution for almost a decade. Dust also holds a special place in the Thai cultural imagination. There’s a slang saying that goes something like, People could be dust in the eye of the door. For people who are part of the ruling class or the establishment, we are just dust. They don’t listen to us, because we are just dust in their eyes. I wanted to play with that reality of the actual dust pollution, as well as the idea that people in power don’t see us as human.

MUBI: It’s also beautiful that dust is kind of impossible to get rid of. In the film, it lingers everywhere, like the ghosts who keep returning in protest. 

Being Vietnamese, I find that a lot of ghost stories from our region are rooted in oral traditions. A Useful Ghost is also structured around this act of passing on stories from one person to another. Why did you decide to choose oral storytelling as a narrative device?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: In the first few drafts of the script, there was none of the oral storytelling. We got directly to Nat and March’s story, without Academic Ladyboy and Krong. At one point, I was writing the fourth draft, and I just couldn’t get the story to finish. Something was missing. Academic Ladyboy was born to rescue me in a way. Because I like artificiality, when a story is not constructed enough, I feel like I need another layer of storytelling, even when the plot is already funny. So I added another set of characters, just to see where that would lead me. Even then, a lot was changed, but I felt that I was on the right track, having another couple of characters to navigate the story for the audience. Eventually, the additions fit with the theme of the film, which is about the passing on of memories.

MUBI: When you look at Southeast Asian films that travel on the international festival circuit, many people associate arthouse films from the region primarily with the aesthetics of slow cinema, known for its contemplative storytelling and rhythm. Your film is such a breath of fresh air in this regard. It’s a genre film in many ways, with elements of comedy and horror, yet it’s also incredibly political. How did you balance these tonal differences? And were you worried about not fitting in with the label of what people think arthouse cinema ought to be?

BOONBUNCHACHOKE: Maybe it’s because I can’t help being funny. Beside working on my own films, I have also been a scriptwriter for TV dramas. When writing for these series, I would always add jokes and humor that are irrelevant to the main story. I would get scolded by my producers and clients, but I simply can’t help myself. I always appreciate a sense of humor, so it’s quite natural for me to add it to my films. Also, when I was young, I grew up watching all the Thai arthouse films, which I really like a lot. But it’s also weird, because I feel that Thai people are quite funny in general. On the internet, Thai people are very funny, even at times when we shouldn’t be. Yet when it comes to festival films set in Thailand, they somehow don’t have much humor. So even though I appreciate those films, I want to see Thai films made in a different way. I tried to steer away from the old paths to arrive at something new. 

You asked me about being worried about not fitting in with a label... Perhaps I am. It’s been a year since the film was released, and sometimes I feel like I’ve disappointed people. For those who want to watch arthouse films, they might find this too silly. And for people who want to watch horror films, they might think this is too serious. But that’s my goal: to be bold.