Infinity Pool (2023) – 3/5

The premise was more intriguing than the outcome, but still a decent film

„Infinity Pool“ is a new movie in the English language, but interestingly enough it is a collaboration between Canada and Hungary and Croatia and I am not entirely sure where those latter two come from, but yeah the focus is definitely on North America in terms of the cast and people who made this, but the film itself is even set somewhere completely different. Where all the action takes place. The country I mean. The Canadian aspect also comes from director Brandon Cronenberg and of course he is a son of David Cronenberg, but he has his own career going on for quite a while now and even if there was a break of several years between this film we have here and his previous work, he is back now and the outcome is not a disappointment. I am not sure if the overall concept here won me over, but the inclusion of specific scenes pretty much did, so the positive recommendation and thumbs-up I have for this film was luckily never really in doubt. The cast helped a bit as well. The lead is of course Alexander Skarsgård and he will probably not steamroll his competition with this film and performance here like he did it on the small screen a while ago, but he is solid from beginning to end. By the way, this also makes an interesting connection with Cronenberg because he is also the son of a very successful father from the film industry, but this time in front of the camera. Mia Goth is strangely fascinating somehow, even if I am never sure if I like her much as an actress. I am still curious about the upcoming „Pearl“ and I have a feeling that people who liked this film here, might also enjoy that one. Her role there is even bigger, but let’s not get into detail too much. Cleopatra Coleman is a pretty memorable name how it sounds, but her role was not too big here, but when she was on, she did fine. She would maybe be a perfect casting choice for a 2020s renewal of „Grindhouse“ or „Death Proof“. Just watched that one too not too long ago and otherwise I probably never would have made this connection. Sorry.

Her screen time in this film here was limited though as I said and same is true for Jalil Lespert, who is still enjoying a successful career right now. Good for him. He had nice recognition value for sure, but sadly there was not too much to his character either here. And these are already the ones with the most screen time. If I look at the minor supporting players, I see some actors with a Balkan background. I guess this is where the Croatian component that I was wondering about earlier comes into play. I see Thomas Kretschmann from my country is also in this film. I did not recognize him there with this short hair to be honest, but he is an actor that is always nice to watch. The name of his character reminded me of a video game. Feel free to text me if you know which one I am talking about. Anyway, this was a film that was really graphic on a few occasions. This includes a more graphic depiction of violence than the one you usually see outside the splatter horror genre. But Cronenberg still kept these shots short. They are there though. Like bleeding brains on the floor etc. Or the bleeding when the boy’s knife hits the flesh. Okay, he did not keep this one short. Or, from another perspective of graphic depictions, also the depiction of sexuality. Of course, I am sure it was not Skarsgård’s own genital there in a scene relatively early during the movie, but they picked a stunt actor if you can call it that or a fill-in, but yeah the ejaculation moment is also something you don’t see too often in films these days. Still a bit of a taboo because the lust you cannot pretend to have to this extent and then it is not acting anymore, but reality, which is not the path to go for. Or you do it with a prop. That would be the only other option. But let’s not talk only about this scene, even if it summarized this film in a nutshell a bit I would say. It is a shocking film, sometimes it feels a bit too much for the sake of it, but on other occasions it feels more accurate and appropriate. It is a film where I would say that it could also be part of the filmmaker’s father’s body of work and would have fit in there nicely in terms of style and story. But even if this is a compliment, let’s not compare the two any further and accept Brendan as a filmmaker in his own right.

One of the biggest aha moments for me was surely when we see Skarsgård’s character getting killed there and we are led to believe that it is really him, but then we see the group applaud in the crowd. I think on one occasion they even praised the main character for how resilient and forward his double was. I will just call them doubles now. But this scene and Skarsgård’s character laughing there made it look to me as if he was not really too emotionally involved, so it felt a bit less realistic then when he has more of a meltdown towards the end when they go after another double of his. They created it to have some fun and then he goes up to the other room to be left alone. Or was that also another double? I am not sure, but in any case I was wondering how they could make these doubles this easily. Technology must have really progressed at that point, I mean it is not even a rich country obviously that has it at its disposal. Society was not though if this was how they handle killings, especially accidental ones. But back to the technology aspect, the way how these doubles are created were also memorable early on, but they did not need the original afterwards anymore to make them? Did they use other doubles? Or they probably had the information stored from the first procedure? This has to be it. Anyway, not too great on data protection and privacy then these folks I supposed. In terms of complete wacko fun, I must mention the scene when the protagonist (or again) another double maybe was hunted there by the folks (his friends?) after leaving the bus and he flees into a forest or so. The way how they (specially Goth’s character) talk to him was really hilarious.

Another key component early on here that deserves elaboration is one they also reference in the film itself, namely the possibility of how the man who had undergone this procedure cannot really be sure anymore he is still himself or just a copy. But if we really think about it, it can be said that he looks the same, acts the same, has the same history (at least in his memory) etc. So it is the same person no? Of course, you can only say it if it is not you who is in the middle of this I suppose, but for somebody looking from the outside, it feels this way. And we all were outsiders when watching this in the movie theater. It was also not even handled in a subtle manner. There were three quotes at least that bring your attention to this. One was about how they say they are all zombies, another came from Lespert’s character (also part of the group) saying something to the protagonist that he seems like a new person. There is a better word for this in German by the way that fits perfect in this scenario („wie ausgewechselt“) and finally the main character’s girlfriend or wife or whatever complains about how the main character behaved like a robot and hardly showed any emotions when he watched his double getting killed. But this is just another reference that makes it difficult to believe that he would act differently in a similar scenario later on, but anyway I talked about this and maybe it also shows that there was some heart and sanity left in him still and you wonder if it is all gone then when the film ends and they are leaving the place and the other characters are just talking about shopping and household routines or so as if nothing happened, but the main character sits there quiet and seems emotionally scarred to some extent. I am not sure if this rather means he lost the last bit of his sanity there deep within during the holidays or if it means it is still a good thing that he is not like the others. He definitely took a traumatic experience from it, but then again his doubles had to go through much more harm than any of the others.

The film also started in a pretty memorable fashion with the car accident and the hiding of it that was suggested not turning out successful at all when police are knocking loudly at his door the next morning and his friends from the previous night as well as his romantic partner maybe even too have turned their backs on him to some extent. I mean his vomiting briefly after the accident shows that he still has morals and I am sure this was not just because he was scared about what might happen to him now, but also because he took a life. This dead man on the street there was also depicted in a very graphic fashion. I guess these were most of the scenes and inclusions that stayed in the head for me here from this pretty long film that runs for almost two hours. There is also the one where Goth’s character talks about the man’s girlfriend and how she is not right for him, but with her physicality and film history as well, it is no surprise that lust is a big element in here. Just take her suggestion that she can have sex at the same time with him and one of his doubles. Now then it might get really difficult to stay focused on who is the „real“ human. As for the sexuality element, I said before that we see male genitalia, but we also see female breasts on one occasion and this pretty surrealistic, trance-like sequence felt like it was taken from a Jefferson Airplane music video and stays in the mind for sure as well. It was pretty good, only the masks did not do too much for me there, but this is of course personal taste. Cronenberg let it all out there without a doubt. Makes me curious about his upcoming projects. I am sure he will stay with the industry for another 20 or 30 years at least. I’m curious now what his father thinks about this film.