Brandon Cronenberg Dives into the Deep End – FilmInk

Brandon Cronenberg has established himself as one of the most unique and daring filmmakers working today. The son of David Cronenberg (Scanners, The Fly, History of Violence, Crimes of the Future), Brandon quickly made his mark with the 2012 body horror Antiviral and the 2020 award-winning psychological horror Possessor, films that saw Cronenberg Jnr. push the boundaries of violence and sex while establishing his own unique visual style.

Infinity Pool, his latest sci-fi horror, sees the filmmaker plunge into the choppy waters of social satire. Alexander Skarsgrd stars as James Foster, a struggling writer who seeks inspiration while on vacation at an exclusive seaside resort with his wealthy wife Em (Australian actress Cleopatra Coleman). A day into his holiday, James meets Gabi (Mia Goth), a mysterious and seductive actress who guides him into a nightmare-fuelled playground of consequence-free violence and hedonism.

A surreal and disturbing yet utterly captivating descent into a world where narcissism and madness drown the soul, Infinity Pool also features the subject of cloning, with the films rich antagonists creating duplicates of themselves who bear the brutal brunt of punishment for the grizzly crimes of their originals. While Infinity Pool can be described as science fiction, it should be seen as more of a distorted and disfigured fairy tale.

(Infinity Pool) is technically a sci-fi movie in the sense that there is a science fiction element to it, but its not predicted science fiction, says Brandon Cronenberg. Its not like a story that in any way accurately builds a world where cloning exists. It is a bit more like magic realism in the sense that there is something kind of resembling our own world that has this one absurd element to it; this one kind of twist to it that makes it a bit more of a fever dream version of reality and the cloning in the film is really there to talk about other things, to drive the plot and action and make a lens to look at the real world and create the satire in the film.

Cronenberg has long encouraged those who watch his films to define the themes for themselves, and Infinity Pool is no exception, with its surreal nature and social commentary on class and violence encouraging much thought and discussion, if the confronting imagery doesnt prove to be too overwhelming (Infinity Pool has an R rating for a reason). As for Cronenberg himself, Infinity Pool presents how even the most banal of souls can descend into the most decadent and depraved behaviour.

(Infinity Pool) is more generally about what happens to people when they can operate without general consequences, he says. In the film, these are very bland people who are capable of doing very horrible things when they are allowed to, and I think history is full of very normal people doing incredibly horrible things when they find themselves in the context of when that is possible.

Filmed in the seaside city of ibenik in Croatia, and in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, in an interesting twist, both Croatia and Hungary were once under tyrannical communist rule throughout the mid to late 20th century, a historical footnote that was not lost on the filmmaker while shooting Infinity Pool.

The reason we chose those countries wasnt because of their histories, he says. But once we were there, I think that kind of old communist aspect to the fictional world, that quality was really enhanced. The real-world histories of those places really started to creep into the film and really define it. The (Kelenfld) power station in Hungary is very much a location that was built under communism. Even the police cars were used by communist politicians in Hungary. The resort we shot at was incredibly strange, but the bones [of it] were from the communist era. It has this sort of brutalist structure that was originally created under communism and was wildly renovated by this eccentric Croatian businessman who wanted to turn each aspect of the resort into another part of Croatia its even weirder as a resort in reality. Those histories really do shape the film and really did play a big part in what it became.

Cronenbergs unique approach to visuals and colour in his films have long been a subject of discussion and admiration, and Infinity Pool is no exception. Where does the filmmaker get his inspiration and ideas for his visual approach?

Part of it is a hard-to-articulate sense of aesthetics that we all sort of have, and as you work in a visual medium there are certain things that just ring true to you, he clarifies. Some of it is more calculated and intends to be pretty collaborative. For instance, when I have a finished script, before we have a cast or locations or sets or anything, my cinematographer Karim Hussain and I will spend a great deal of time making a kind of theoretical shot list where we really discuss scene by scene what the visual language of the film is and its usually motivated by narrative and other elementswe go through a very long process of exploring visual effects, playing with gels and lighting and filters and glass and projection feedback, and we stumble on interesting stuff that starts to define the film. So, some of it is innate, some of it is very calculated, and some of it is found art.

Infinity Pool will release in Australian cinemas on May 11, 2023

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Brandon Cronenberg Dives into the Deep End - FilmInk