In Brandon Cronenberg’s third feature, novelist James Foster (Alexander Skarsgard) and his rich wife, Em Foster (Cleopatra Coleman, “The Last Man on Earth”), are vacationing at a resort on the fictional island of La Tolqa. When Gabi Bauer (Mia Goth) invites James to dinner with her and her husband (Jalil Baer), James accepts despite Em’s reservations. “Infinity Pool” (2003) shows what happens when a husband does not listen to his black wife in a sci fi horror film.
Though Cronenberg’s style is distinct from his dad, David, the similarity in their work is unmistakable. Father and son love to break taboos on screen by depicting a mixture of hedonistic sex and violence, but Brandon’s work has a more socioeconomic undercurrent and moralizing absent in his father’s work. While his father’s films revel in amoral themes, Brandon’s films feel like cautionary tales, and he is conscious of the characters’ layered identity: their gender, their race, their nationality, their religion, or lack thereof, class, etc. He wisely sets the film in a fictional location with white presenting people and examines post-modern colonialism in terms of cultural appropriation, tourism and one’s own identity and body.
La Tolqa may be fictional, and Cronenberg only reveals its people and traditions through the eyes of its tourists, but it felt as if he had given a lot of thought to their religion, folk practices, and lifestyles. They live in small communities, are dependent on tourism, some live behind mini fortresses or in more isolated places, but have close ties to each other. They are distinguished from the tourists because they have a red and blue smudge underneath their left eye. They understand the tourists in a cynical way that the tourists do not understand themselves, and there are grotesque scenes as they try to anticipate how to entertain the tourists by dressing up in traditional Chinese garb, Hassidic Jews (an anti-Semitic image so remember that the Cronenbergs may be atheists, but their heritage was Orthodox Judaism) or Bollywood dancers. Their explanation of their cultural practices versus the impression that they give, such as the warped facial masks, feels dissonant. Instead of a sign of friendship, the masks feel like left over props from “The Strangers” (2008). Even though their infrastructure seems to be worn and old, as “Infinity Pool” unfolds, it becomes apparent that they are more versatile in scientific developments. They have an extensive bureaucracy and try to protect themselves from the tourists, but fail. They seem frustrated, disgusted, and resigned to the tourists’ reaction to their safety measures.
The tourists’ treatment of the locals reveals more about their character than the Tolqans. The tourists mine their sacred rituals and law enforcement for diversions. They call the Tolqans “baboons” and rationalize their increasing brutalist behavior as a need to assert their dominance in a one-sided delusional game that the tourists are playing whereas the Tolqans are trying to find a balance between justice and survival. Each side dehumanizes the other, but only one side faces permanent, obvious consequences in the real world, the Tolqans, and the other side, the tourists, is unaware of the loss of their soul and is incapable of being more than grown, spoiled, delinquent children. The tourists want to consume Tolqan culture but have no comprehensive, contextualized understanding of it or respect for the Tolqans. They do not go to Tolqans to learn from them or defer to their officials.
One could argue that the tourists lost their culture because of their colonialist impulse; thus their soul. They sacrifice any authentic history, heritage and origin in exchange for a veneer of international sophisticated jet setting. They pride themselves on being from everywhere and nowhere, which is why they are devoid of any rituals and appropriate the Tolqans’ rites without understanding them.
An early question raised in “Infinity Pool” is “Why him?” The obvious answer is, “Have you seen Alexander Skarsgaard? Duh!” Why is James Foster the main character, the person whom Em and Gabi chose? He is a writer who does not write, has no story to tell, scoffs at his idea of going to a resort for inspiration, lives off his wife with no compunction and is starving for attention and thrills, while terrified, submissive, and easily manipulated. Writers are supposed to be unofficial anthropologists, but he is eager to ignore the red flags that his new friends are waving until it affects him.
James is a terrific bridge character between the audience and the inner circle of tourists, the gang. He is a man who writes with no story to tell, but the last six years of his life, if not longer, he is willing to survive off others’ hard work and creativity. We cannot relate to the gang because like James, we do not know their secret, their initiation rituals, and we do not share experiences with them. James wants to believe the delusion that he belongs in their world because he wants to believe that he has disposable income, is talented and is willing to do anything to continue the delusion. An audience needs a character who is a bit unsavory to enter the gang, but is just clueless enough for us as strangers to relate to him then feel above him when he makes the wrong choices, which we want him to do so we can know the secret. Em tells him, “It’s disgusting that you can just sit there and watch it like some robot. What’s wrong with you?” Cronenberg condemns his audience for being like James and wanting to watch.
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The secret in “Infinity Pool” is that the Tolqans clone rich transgressors then execute the clones for their transgressors’ crimes. The tourists are thrilled that there are no consequences for their behavior and choose James as their latest member, but do not have to do much to induct him into their society. He does not know that they have not read his book or tricked him into beating up his clone, but he eagerly thought that he was beating up Detective Thresh (unrecognizable Thomas Kretschman) so do not feel too bad for him. They get off on the fact that they kill themselves while still being able to live, and Cronenberg’s thesis is right. Violence against others is really violence against oneself. The gang calls themselves “zombies” and “flesh eaters,” which I did not see coming, but loved.
Unlike them, James cannot enjoy this vacation from morality then return to normal life. It does not help that he is the only one not in a couple. So he stays at the now empty, closed resort alone and possibly drowning on the beach during the rainy season. He will not be with the Tolqans because even when they show him mercy and hospitality, he is unable to see them, but sees them as the little boy who executed his clone. He is more frightened of the Tolqans even though he is their murderer, and the gang hurts him. James cannot return to normal life because to a certain degree, their wealth enables them to behave similarly in a more socially acceptable way. He cannot.
It is interesting to me that Em, though she is literally born to privilege and wealth, rejects this life and is never eligible to be admitted to the group. She has a solid identity, has normal appetites, is aware when James manipulates her and cannot lie/has a conscience.
There are four kaleidoscope sequences showing how James got seduced: while dancing with Gabi, when getting clones, during the orgy and after the accident. The last is the first sequence where he sees his wife as a tormentor, not Gabi as seductor. I wish that I had focused more on the final sequence, but James did not need drugs to get high and transcend his usual consciousness. The mere encounter with Gabi and a new way of living annihilates and rebirths him, but his new self cannot live in this world.
Because I love that Cronenberg created a fictional sci fi universe where cloning is possible for an exploited country that depends on tourist dollars, I theorize that because doctor complained that it cannot be replicated, it is connected to Tolqa’s religious practices. “Infinity Pool” is the opposite of “Midsommar” (2019) because an insular community welcomes outsiders and is part of a resurrection cult that the outsiders enjoy and can leave.
