INTRODUCTION
Mia Mello Gypsy Da Silva Goth is the daughter of a Canadian and a Brazilian. During her childhood, her grandmother, the actress Maria Gladys, suggested to Mia that she should pursue a career in acting, however, she initially opted for modelling, and so at the age of fourteen she tried her luck as a model, a career she would abandon six years later to pursue acting, and it was in this new profession that she would achieve the greatest recognition. Mia Goth is a method actress, making her acting debut in her twenties in the film Nymphomaniac Vol. 2 (2013). Mia is also one of the most popular actresses of the moment, who has been said to be the actress who only makes good movies and who has been compared to horror stars such as Italian director Luca Guadagnino who compares her to Shelley Duvall, iconic actress of the 70s.
I have decided to write a little about Goth after six years of being absent from my taste in cinema, because it so happens that months ago I decided to see a film that is constantly talked about in groups of horror film fans, the acclaimed Pearl (2022), a psychological horror film in which Mia Goth plays the leading role.
I watched for the first time this actress around 2015 for her participation in Lars Von Trier’s beloved —and hated— Nymphomaniac Vol. 2 by Lars Von Trier, I think there are enough words to say how much I fell in love with her performance in this film; her slender body, her cold look, her faithful and transgressive heart captivated my senses until the end, however, despite the greatness of her performance, it is possible that her participation in Nymphomaniac will not be fully remembered by most viewers, because the last hour of the film was censored for a controversial dialogue alluding to Hitler, for this reason the audience was only able to watch in cinemas the first two hours of a film that lasts three —not counting volume 1—, and it is precisely in this last part of the film where P (Mia Goth) makes her glorious debut as the helpless, troubled and rebellious girl who will be adopted at the end of the film by the protagonist Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg), this last part entitled “The gun” did not reach conventional cinemas, nor the streaming platforms which not only leaves the film itself unfinished, but also gives a totally different message, in turn, leaves a lot of loose ends.
Despite her remarkable role as P in Nymphomaniac, Mia continued to act in thriller-themed films, appearing in such notable works as Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Suspiria (2018), Hight Life (2018) by the controversial and brilliant Claire Denise, the sci-fi thriller The Survivalisentre (2015) and the romantic comedy Emma (2020), among others. However, Mia would become more popular after the release of Pearl (2022) directed by Ti West, and co-written by Mia Goth herself.
Pearl is a psychological horror film set in the year 1918 where the story of a girl who lives with her parents on a farm far from the city, Pearl (Mia Goth), tired of the family environment, longs to be a superstar and leave aside her life as a country girl. Throughout the film we see the multiple personalities and fantasies of Pearl, who never gets what she wants and consequently — by way of consolation — kills, an aspect we will see in the sequel X (2022).
FROM FLESH
The sequel to Pearl is X, set [in 1979] sixty-one years after the events of Pearl [1918], the plot focuses on a group of independent performers who seek success through the rise and popularity of pornographic films — something that was mentioned in the prequel —. Within this group participates the young and sensual Maxine (who is in turn Mia Goth) who comes to represent, in my interpretation, a carnal manifestation of the desires and frustrations of Pearl’s unconscious, or in a more appropriate term: Doppelgänger. For both Pearl, now an old woman, and Maxine — both Mia Goth, a young and an old woman — aim to be superstars. Despite leading lives with similar interests, the few differences between Pearl and Maxine are arguably the following: Pearl chose to live a repressed life with her husband until they grew up, i.e. she repeated the monotonous life her mother warned her about, while Maxine runs away from home because of her family’s religious ennui. Pearl on the one hand continued her life as usual, while Maxine dared to make a change in her life, those would be the main differences between them.
The story of X is merely striking as it deals with themes such as sexual freedom, as well as the struggle between political correctness and immorality, as opposed to Pearl, which moves from repression to transgression, from correctness to incorrectness. The director’s proposal with both films is purely experimental, as the two films seem to be totally opposite, but at the same time they are complementary and pay homage to both the erotic-pornographic cinema of the early 20th century and the golden age of horror films.
This trend or proposal for the experimental has become popular since 2018 with films such as Gaspar Noé’s Climax, the aforementioned Suspiria, Lars Von Trier’s The House That Jack Built, Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy, to name but a few. But somehow since the release of X and Pearl, experimental, or auteur, cinema has — one could say — been renewed.
Now, something that I loved about the film X, is the way in which it tackles the theme of the doppelgänger, as it is a resource that I haven’t seen in a film for a long time, and that I have only seen represented in a masterly way in the classic film 
Possession (1981) by Andrzej Zulawski. However, the question arises, why is it so fascinating today to watch simulation on screen? The answer is simple, and it is because we find ourselves in an age where identity has been supplanted by an ‘other self’ [the real ‘I’, the virtual ‘I’], where the symbolic struggle between the real and the imaginary is no longer that of the unconscious but of the diffuse, This is a problem today, because neither the conscious nor the unconscious is able to distinguish what is real or not, they are confused with each other, because after the excess of reality, nothing seems to be real anymore and what remains is the simulation; the interpretation of a possible reality, an aspect that I will explore — and reflect upon — in the film Infinity Pool (2023).
TO SIMULATION
I find in Baudrillard a question of interest regarding simulation: “Am I a man, am I a machine?” to which Baudrillard responds as follows: “Today there is no longer an answer to this question. Realistically and subjectively, I am a man; virtually I am a machine”. (1)
This will be the problem in a sci—fi horror film titled Infinity Pool, released in 2023 and directed by Brandon Cronenberg, in which Mia Goth is a major character.
The film shows us James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård), a writer who on the verge of a creative block decides to seek inspiration in a coastal and tourist country called Li Tolqa, where people are faithful to their rules and traditions, however, the mental block is not the only problem for James, but another drawback of the protagonist is that he does not distinguish his reality, indeed, has no memories, does not know even the most elementary of himself, for that reason he has not managed to write the novel he wants so much. It is only later that James meets Gabi (Mia Goth) who claims to be an admirer and eventually becomes his lover.
As the story progresses we are treated to multiple murders committed for fun, for what if someone else could be blamed for the crimes committed, or better still, for the —hypothetical — crimes we have committed. Let us suppose that we murder someone and we are discovered, and not only that, but the government gives us the opportunity to clone ourselves for a considerable amount of money and that it is this one (the clone) who takes all the blame, which would leave us free of such crimes, however, for each murder —a rule proposed by the government—, some relative of the victim has the right to avenge the death of their loved one, and so the clone will die sacrificed in a violent way —vague memories of the potlatch that Lacan and Bataille speak of—.
It should be made clear that the clone is a faithful copy not only physically, but also mentally, as all memories and recollections are transferred to it. For this reason, at some point in the film, the protagonist questions whether it is me who lives, or whether I am a living clone.
For the protagonist no longer knows whether it is his real self or his fake self that is alive.
This is what we know as a body-horror story, for the possibility of the body being transgressed as a fetish element or as a spectacle not only opens up the possibilities of transhumanist politics, but also brings us closer to a possible future, one where cloning is possible and gives the guideline to commit crimes freely without suffering the consequences directly.
CONCLUSION
This type of ideas and cinema is not new —although it may seem so—, as it has been masterfully represented in the 80s and 90s —or in modern times in the wonderful Crimes of the Future (2022)— by the filmmaker David Cronenberg, an author who has brought to the big screen film adaptations of some of the experimental and surrealist novels of J.B. Ballard and William Burroughs.
Cronenberg —along with certain philosophers and writers— has reflected on the human body, seeing it as the merchandise par excellence of capitalism, see the popularity of applications such as TikTok, where entertainment and sexualisation are the pillar of the application.
So the success of Mia Goth is not surprising, as she is the incarnation of this simulation, of this world of exploitation and sexualisation with which the public can easily identify, as the films in which Goth participates are a reflection of the desire to be something more than just someone who goes about her daily business —Pearl—, who, fed up with reality, fantasise about becoming a superstar —X—, and unable to satisfy this need, end up falling back on unbridled hedonistic practices —Nymphomaniac—, however, not even with all of the above do they manage to feel real —Infinity Pool—.
The body is the currency par excellence, yes, and always has been, however, in these times the body is no longer seen as it was before, because modern human beings, lacking a real feeling for their bodies, seek ways to transgress it, and why not: to entertain themselves, as we can see in reels of people who promote their bodies in exchange for likes. It is not necessary that what we see is real, because what is attractive is the fictional, however there are those who have modified their bodies to the extent that they look like aliens, robots, or anime characters, but why is it something so economically profitable for some?
The body being originally sexually desirable, one of the main aspects to highlight in the simulation is that of sensuality —or seduction—, which has gone from being a ritual object, to an object of enjoyment —for example the popular dances that are done in TikTok, or the pornographic photographs of OnlyFans—, We see this reflected in the intimate relations that James and Gabi share as a ritual after the series of symbolic murders in Infinity Pool, as they not only kill civilians, but a part of them dies as well, that is, they kill part of the real (their body, which becomes simulated).
The simulated body imitates the basic instincts of the human being, so it is natural for it to have the need to kill. In all this, I would like to mention the reflection that Walter Cenci writes about the body: “Today we don’t know what to do with it, whether to stylise it with diets, sports, massages, refurbish it with surgeries, eliminate it as in anorexia, or all together as happens in telematics”.(2) He is right, as the possibilities that we have today — for example, surgeries for aesthetic purposes — open the way to true body—horror, as the body no longer has limits to be transgressed, and that we can transgress it either out of necessity or for entertainment, the film Crimes of the Future represents this vision in an interesting way.
However, to deny this reality which is subject to the evolution of technology is absurd, because at some point the relationship between body and machine will be indispensable, and at some point inevitable, as
Paul B. Preciado mentions in his Counter Manifesto. Preciado mentions in his Contrasexual Manifesto: “Sexuality is a technology made of machines, products, instruments, devices, tricks, prostheses, networks, […] It is time to enter the black box of the system and to invent a new grammar”.
Body-horror is inevitable, and Mia Goth embodies it masterfully in her leading roles, hence her popularity and freshness on screen, as she represents the fears of the future.
NOTES
1) Baudrillard citado por Walter Cenci en: Baudrillard y el cuerpo: Metamorfosis, metafísica y simulación. Nueva Eitorial Iztaccihuatl, México, 2018, p.15.
2) Ibid. p.53.
