Death of a (Thai) Salesman
Thai cinema-goers love a good ghost story. I’m not exaggerating when I say that at least 25% of the Thai films released every year feature some sort of ghost-themed story line. So it wasn’t unusual to sit down earlier this week to “Laddaland” a movie that at first appearances had all the trappings of your typical Thai ghost flick. The general plot line went as follows: A middle class family relocating from Bangkok move into a new suburban housing estate in Chiang Mai. Not long after moving in the Burmese maid employed in the house next door is found murdered and it doesn’t take long for her ghost to start making the rounds in the neighborhood. Soon thereafter the owner of the same house where the maid was murdered kills his wife, mother, son, and himself, only adding to the squad of ghosts that are tormenting the newly relocated family next door.
There are tense moments, black cats, staccato musical notes, and lots of other horror movie clichés, but it doesn’t take long to realize what this movie actually is: A critique of the Thai middle class dream disguised as a ghost story. From the first appearance of a ghost, most of the neighborhood is quickly packing up to leave, they know better than to mess with a Burmese maid looking for revenge. Unfortunately, the father isn’t so smart. He has finally put a down payment on his dream home and is too busy buying new flat screen TVs and other status markers to realize that he should run away from the home and back to the relative tranquility of their Bangkok rental.
Soon thereafter he loses the sales job that he was relying on to make the hefty month mortgage payments. In a particularly poignant scene, he is shown almost in tears looking at himself in the mirror, buttoning up a polo shirt advertising the mini-mart where he has been reduced to working as a glorified janitor. Add to this a deteriorating relationship with his daughter and wife and you want to yell at him to run away from this trap of a house as soon as possible. But the power and pull of the middle class dream and all it stands for can not be underestimated. While his wife and daughter are packing up the car to head back to Bangkok, dad is still installing the backyard swing set. Ultimately, this story doesn’t end well. With obvious shadows of “death of a salesman” lingering in the directors head, the final scenes are quite predictably tragic.
A cautionary tale about the dangers of glamorizing home ownership is not what you would expect from a Thai ghost movie and though I would not say I found the movie particularly enjoyable, it did force me to think, which is sadly more than I can usually say of mainstream Thai movies. Below is the official Laddaland trailer:
