At the poolside of a five-star hotel, James and Em bask in the sun, indolent, carefree. And for good reason: they are young, beautiful and very rich. Around the luxurious complex stand walls and barbed wire: the plebs should not spoil the stay of customers. A writer at a loss for inspiration, James is bewitched when a client, the seductive Gabi, compliments him on his unique novel. However, behind his facade of naivety, Gabi hides worrying intentions. After the destabilizing and excellent Owner (Possessor in VF), Brandon Cronenberg returns with Infinity Pool (Overflow), another story where existential and ethical considerations rub shoulders with a debauchery of gore, hallucinatory flashes… and bodily eruptions of all kinds.
In a fascinating allegory of the immunity often enjoyed by the wealthy guilty of crimes, James discovers that, for a large sum, he can be cloned (in a visually stunning process). A perfect imitation, this clone will be executed in its place. A detail: James must attend his own killing…
“It’s the very first image that came to me,” says the Canadian filmmaker, with whom we spoke the day after the premiere of his film at Sundance, where it caused a lot of talk.
I have a notebook where I write down all the flashes that come to mind…
“Several years ago, I was toying with this idea for a literary short story: I saw this man who was watching the execution of his double. At the same time, I thought back to those very bizarre vacations, twenty years ago, in an all-inclusive. It was like in the movie: the hotel was surrounded by fences topped with sharp barbed wire. Inside, there was everything: cheesy shops, restaurants, a terrible nightclub… It was forbidden to leave the enclosure, again like in the film. The contrast between the surrounding wealth and the surrounding poverty struck me. Especially since when we arrived, we were taken to the hotel by bus, but during the night, so that we wouldn’t see the villages and the idleness of people. It was only when I left that I was able to see all that, by day. This contrast was horrifying, but at the same time, surreal. »
This word, “surreal”, is not insignificant, the film venturing into these strange and unusual lands during many sequences.
Premeditation and intuition
In short, the plot ofInfinity Pool thus began to take shape, enriched by the so-called question of the lack of accountability conferred by money. In the film, James commits manslaughter in circumstances that will be kept silent, and it is then that he finds himself joining the ranks of this kind of secret society made up of privileged tourists. Who never stop committing murders out of whim or boredom, then paying the authorities who pocket, clone and condemn a double.
A double that is not only identical, but moreover imbued with all of the person’s memories. Knowing this, as clones are born and die, one may wonder whether the original individuals really are, among other peripheral considerations.
“I had certain questions in mind when I got down to the script, but like every project, as I wrote, as the characters took shape, additional considerations arose. There is a part of premeditation and a part of intuition. »
It was mentioned: Infinity Pool sparked strong reactions at Sundance. The film has, in fact, a handful of explicit passages. When James crosses the Rubicon, baroque frenzies multiply thanks to montages where the flesh merges – cinephiles fond of horror will remember the cult Society (High society), by Brian Yuzna, a film not having the same refinement, but a relative subtext. Decor helping, we also think of All You Can Eat Buddhaby Ian Lagarde.
These sequences, resembling macabre and sensual tableaux, see here and there, fleetingly, mutant genitals appear: a phallus emerging from an orifice recalls Rabid (Rage), by David Cronenberg, the filmmaker’s father. Stupre, blood, lactation: sensitive souls, or simply chaste ones, abstain.
“I have a notebook where I write down all the flashes that come to mind… Some of them stem from a reflection on my current project, others end up in my films without having been initially associated with them. I must, moreover, specify that for these hallucinatory sequences, collaboration is essential to me. By this I mean that in my screenplay, I’m just going to write a paragraph mentioning “sequence of nightmarish images”, without describing them. It is then, with my team and my director of photography, Karim Hussain, that we do tests and develop what are similar to experimental short films. »
Rightly explained
Already, Owner pushed the boundaries of violence and bloody tricks. By adding a carnal dimension, Infinity Pool go further. Too far ?
“The explicit scenes in the film are, in my opinion, justified and essential. They are in phase with the evolution, even the mutation, of the characters. At first, they are beige people in a beige environment. Except that, when one represses and represses desires and impulses and when, suddenly, the opportunity arises to free the animal which sleeps in oneself, without there being any consequences, that can only give an extreme result. So embracing that, visually, rather than hiding it off camera, that was important to me; I had to be consistent. And then, I think it brings the audience closer to the characters, which makes the experience more intimate and more visceral. »
For example, the scene of masturbation and ejaculation filmed in close-up, presented in the first act, has a real narrative utility. This is the moment when James succumbs to Gabi: it doesn’t take much for him to become his toy. Understand: men think with their penis. It is, moreover, a way for the film to establish from the outset that what we usually try to hide will be exhibited here.
Ultrarich in the viewfinder
Finally, with its ruthless criticism of the ultra-rich, Infinity Pool is a continuation of recent Triangle of Sadness (Without filter), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Glass Onion: a story at loggerheads) and The Menu (The menu), which took on the same targets, each in its own way. While specifying that he is working on Infinity Pool since 2016, Brandon Cronenberg concedes that there is an interesting concordance there, however fortuitous it may be.
Of the lot, his film is certainly the most unique — that’s a compliment.
“I believe that science fiction and horror have no equal in reflecting reality. It’s a fascinating paradox because, often, the more the proposal is unusual, extraterrestrial, the more it manages to put its finger on very concrete issues. »
We can only agree with him.
The life of rich and immortal people