Not yet thirty years old, Mia Goth has already collaborated with several world-renowned filmmakers for her willingness to follow their most demented muses. Her girlish appearance strikes a shocking contrast with the atrocity exhibitions that she gravitates toward: eagerly taking to sexual grooming in Lars Von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac;” undergoing forcible insemination and grisly spaghettification with Claire Denis in “High Life;” becoming an insane asylum’s incestuous princess for Gore Verbinski in “A Cure for Wellness;” witnessing her own disembowelment as part of the orgiastic blood ritual Luca Guadagnino that’s the grand finale to “Suspiria;” manifesting a century of madness for Ti West’s in-progress trio of period pieces of “X,” “Pearl,” and the upcoming “Maxxxine.” And so it’s no surprise that Goth’s latest outing is another twisted affair: Brandon Cronenberg‘s “Infinity Pool,” which takes place at a Mediterranean beach resort that hides a violent and depraved sub-culture. As the son of body-horror maestro David Cronenberg, Brandon practically inherits depravity as a birthright. But where will his collaboration with Goth stack up with fans against the actress’ other enviable outings?
Expect “Infinity Pool” to stack up well with its wicked, hallucinatory class satire, as Cronenberg and Goth join their passion for plumbing the dankest fissures of untethered id. In the new film, self-pitying novelist James (Alexander Skarsgard) and his moneyed wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) vacation in a seaside country first rest and relaxation, and possibly some creative inspiration. But once James falls in with self-professed fan Gabi (Goth) and her entourage of bon vivants, R&R soon stands for rage and rutting. Goth introduces the couple to an underbelly of violence and sex that roils beneath the placid surface of this oasis, with the actress game for every inventive, formally ravishing display of perversion that Cronenberg has in store for the audience. Together, the pair mint an instant staple for midnight movie programs, awash in unspecified fluids, bristling with volatility, and unpredictable as a rabid dog.
A few days before the theatrical premiere of “Infinity Pool,” Goth and Cronenberg spoke to The Playlist about favoring the “unhinged,” the material pleasures of practical effects, and the secret recipe for clone-tank sludge.
In terms of nudity, extreme content, and plain vulnerability, “Infinity Pool” asks a lot of its actors. How did you first broach the more sensitive aspects of performance that this movie would entail?
Mia Goth: I remember, I’d just wrapped “Pearl,” and I was flying home, then I got on a Zoom with Brandon just as soon as I’d gotten in the door. We had a lot of conversations, though the first ones were about just getting to know each other more than anything. I’d been a fan of his work for a long time, since “Antiviral,” and then “Possessor” reminded me again of what a unique filmmaker he is. So it was a process, coming together, but very natural.
Brandon Cronenberg: It was an organic thing, yeah. I was in the same boat, wanting to work with Mia for years. I thought she was one of those actors who’s completely fascinating in everything she does, and I was just happy she took interest in the film. There’s a lot to take on, but there’s no early conversation like “this is a graphic film, oh my God!” because it’s all there in the script. She could see that for herself. Most of her questions were about the nuance of the character, approaching it from that human angle.
I guess after everything in her filmography this far, there’s probably not much that fazes Mia.
Goth: I’m aware that the material is challenging, and might be regarded as provocative, but those are the kinds of movies I enjoy watching! And they’re also the kind, ultimately, that I want to make. I want to be involved with projects and filmmakers that push me. I like pushing myself. Generally, life is quite complicated, and I seek out movies reflecting that.
Even with characters divorced from hard reality, it’s all still rooted in psychology for you?
Goth: That’s right. I feel quite fortunate to take on these people who can become unhinged, people who are in many ways hidden from themselves. The audience gets to witness their transformation, as they come to understand and are forced to reckon with themselves.
Practical effects being a big part of Brandon’s filmmaking ethic, the shoot must have been very technically involved. Was there an impulse to push prosthetics and other fields of craft past where you took them with “Possessor”? And Mia, what did this demand of you?
Goth: What was great about Brandon’s set is that everything is done on the ground, right there. The orgy scenes, the hallucinations, everything was done by an incredible crew. One day, we were in this large box they’d constructed in the studio, and I was watching them doing all this work with lenses and filters to create these fantastic effects. As a lover of cinema and of Brandon’s previous films, it was just cool to see how this gets done, more than anything. I appreciated the experience, hardly a demand.
Cronenberg: Well, thank you. I started with a short film before “Possessor,” as my cinematographer Kareem Hussain and I started going down a particular path in terms of the in-camera experiments. We had Dan Martin, who we’ve had working on makeup effects in the past two films, consistently brilliant guy, very inventive. But in terms of the aesthetic of this film, aside from wanting to root the gore effects in physical makeup for the sake of weight and texture that reads onscreen, a huge amount of it was the impulse toward exploration with department heads like Kareem. Zosia Mackenzie, our production designer, was building these mirror boxes. One had mirrors on all sides, except the inward-facing mirror was two-way, so you could look in with a camera but not out. The back was smart glass, so you could have a pinwheel of light that would spin, but only the light would be visible instead of the rig holding them.
Then we’d re-project the footage, sometimes for sixteen-hour stretches in Kareem’s living room, playing footage and shooting it again through different glass or gels. We created a mountain of footage that I then had to sort through with our editor, James Vandewater, who was very game. I feel sorry for him; it was just weeks and weeks of sifting around to find cool-looking frames, then matching each individual frame to the next, almost like we were recreating the footage in distorted stop-motion.
There’s a lot to be said for working with your hands.
Cronenberg: I like this because there’s a pleasure to exploration. I don’t hate CGI or anything, but for me, the tactile discoveries that come from using materials make for more interesting visuals and happy accidents that you couldn’t have done on purpose. You’re trying to get one effect, but then you stumble upon something else, and maybe it becomes central to the look of the film.
That red liquid that Alexander Skarsgard is submerged in, what’s that made out of?
Cronenberg: You know, I don’t know. [Laughs.] It’s just some stuff we found in a bunch of buckets lying around a power station in Hungary. I’m sure it’s fine. But no, all I know is that it was made by our physical effects team, and that they had really fine control over opacity and viscosity and color, lots of options. And it stains skin very badly, so we only got one chance at the shot of Alexander sticking his foot into it. It was the last shot on a long day. That’s a high-stakes take.
“Infinity Pool” hits theaters everywhere on January 27. Watch a trailer for the film below.
