White Sand, Brain Death, Buffalo Sausage
INFINITY POOL – a film by Brandon Cronenberg – SPOILERS ⁓

Mia Goth as Gabi Bauer
Em Foster (Cleopatra Coleman) and her husband James (Alexander Skarsgård) awaken on a clear morning, and Em is puzzled. “You said you can’t feed yourself with white sand brain death,” she tells James, who shares her puzzlement. “What does that mean? I didn’t say that,” he replies. “But I heard you,” Em continues. “Why are we here? It isn’t helping. You’re so frozen these days. I can’t even tell if you’re sleeping or awake.” They decide to go down for breakfast even if that wasn’t James’ original idea, and we get starkly stunning visuals of the resort where they are staying, beginning with an array of cabanas that bring to mind computer stations. The camera pans upward to show the coastline complete with offshore islands, then, with an Immelman manœuver, gives us a tour of the rest of the resort.
Before breakfast they receive a briefing from Maître d’hôtel Ketch (Ádám Boncz). The rainy season, known to locals as “the summoning”, is approaching, and Ketch suggests that all should be anointed with “fet yegga pigment” in the “colours of the coast” (though none of the main characters do that). Ekki masks, distorted portrayals of postmortem decomposition, are for sale in the gift shop and are worn along with red bow ties, by the entire wait staff.

Alexander Skarsgård as James and Cleopatra Coleman as Em — Skarsgård will also be Roland Penrose in Ellen Kuras‘ upcoming biopic LEE.
Em goes off on a tour of the local islands, clearing the way (intentionally?) for James to meet Gabi Bauer (Mia Goth), who says she is a fan of his work and is eagerly anticipating his next book. (James published one novel six years previously called “The Variable Sheath” which was not well-received, and is now firmly mired in writer’s block.) When Em returns, the four have dinner together and the next day rent a mid-80s Cadillac cabriolet and drive down the coast to a beach littered with derelict automobiles where they barbecue buffalo sausages. After dark, James, the least drunk of the four, drives them back toward the resort. The headlights fail and while James fiddles with the switch he strikes and kills a pedestrian.
Like the Pontiac and Chevy that will later block an attempt by James to flee the country, that Cadillac seems to represent imported excesses of bourgeois Americana. The main filming location for INFINITY POOL was Amadria Park Resort in Sibinek, Croatia, located near the mid-point of the Eastern Adriatic coast in what was once Yugoslavia where (until 2008) the Yugo was manufactured.
Next morning James is arrested and quickly discovers the quirkiness of Li Tolqan law. To encourage tourism, foreign nationals convicted of capital crimes are not executed. Instead, an exact double is rapidly generated. The double, which possesses all the memories (and guilt) of the original, is executed by the victim’s next of kin with the original perpetrator among those watching. It is an addictive experience for some of the spectators.
Em is revolted by James’ apparent indifference to his double’s execution, so James goes to the lobby and ends up having a drink with Gabi who explains how she and her husband got involved with the local justice system. “The first year we came,” she tells him, “Alban was working as a consultant on the construction of a new resort…They were installing an infinity pool, one of Alban’s designs. A little pervy with a glass bottom you could look up into from the bar. But the plate split and fell off the crane, and two workers were killed.”
Goth’s character Gabi kind of sneaks up on you, and has four aspects. She begins as a rabid fan of James’ work, quickly seques into a drug-crazed psychotic, and then into a vituperative critic riding the hood of a pursuing automobile like a drunken car show model. At the story’s end, she has (seemingly) returned to being herself, an unremarkable subarbanite tourist.

Snacking on fried chicken and sipping wine on the hood of a moving car, Gabi pursues her quarry like a drunken Valkyrie
Gabi introduces James to a group of people who also have had doubles executed. The most vocal of those, Jennifer (Amanda Brugel), refers to herself and the others as zombies. Alban (Jalil Lespert) explains that the Li Tolqans are generous with discipline, especially if they know you can pay, and will kill you for drugs, blasphemy, or sodomy. Dr. Modan (John Ralston), who is writing a paper on the local “doubling tradition” asks James an important question: “Do you think, I mean, looking back on it, that they killed the real James? That was my biggest fear after my own experience, because you wake up in that little room and, for all you know, they could’ve just swapped you out.”
It is never clear if end-point James is the original James, but whichever it is ends up with three urns filled with ashes of his other selves. Everyone else leaves, but James remains in Li Tolqa for at least part of the rainy season.
and is available on DVD and Blu-ray.