at her best and most inscrutable) on the beach by their resort. A local Li Tolqan is doing donuts with his ATV, which Gabi informs James is a statement: He’d like to stab a tourist like James through the throat and hang up his head to warn visitors away.
the next day on a beach outside of the resort’s boundaries, she sneaks up behind James while he’s peeing, l eans on him, and jerks him off to orgasm. We see a closeup of a hand gliding over an erect penis that then ejaculates. For good measure, Cronenberg gives us a shot of semen hitting the sand.On the way back to the resort, James drives their borrowed convertible, whose lights start flickering, preventing him from seeing the local who has just wandered into the road. James hits him and he dies. Gabi insists that they flee the scene, because confessing will do them no good.
But! There’s an out: Li Tolqa’s tourism initiative offers something called the Revised Process of Doubles Act for International Visitors and Diplomats. In exchange for a fee, a clone of James can be made and implanted with his mind, specifically for the purposes of execution.
. After the procedure, he watches a 13-year-old stab his clone nearly three dozen times. Toward the end of the sequence, his eyes seem to smile.