2025 / Dir. Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke / 2025 Chicago International Film Festival
☆ 4/5
Watch if you like: Yorgos Lanthimos and Aki Kaurismäki films, and Amazon’s Alexa assistant but she’s really a ghost who wants to overthrow capitalism and have sex with you.
A haunted vacuum cleaner does battle with a haunted refrigerator in this outrageous debut black comedy from the Thai director. Multiple dovetailing stories revolve around an appliance factory where a worker was killed and continues to haunt (picture a Dyson floor fan writing around yelling, “I’m in pain”). Meanwhile, the recently widowed son of the owner is overjoyed for his wife to have returned from the grave; his family is less so when they find him making love to the vacuum cleaner she’s taken as a corporeal form. What starts as a deeply deadpan comedy grows even more audacious as it becomes a metaphor for the cruelties of contemporary Thai capitalism. Perhaps a little long and overstuffed with ideas, but like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
