Death, tourism and balconies in Magaluf Ghost Town (Blanca 2021)

ABSTRACT

Miguel Ángel Blanca’s eccentric docufiction film, Magaluf Ghost Town, follows three residents of the Mallorcan resort area during the 2019 tourist season. By offering locals’ perspectives on lives tied to the excesses of low-cost tourism, the film traces their respective desires to withstand, break and transform the Faustian pact through which this part of Calvià municipality has made its living. Tourism infrastructure visually organizes the picture, with one space in particular – the hotel balcony – playing an important aesthetic and thematic role. Yet, while the overt references to balconing – the often-fatal tourist practice of jumping into a pool from one’s room – seem to parrot media-driven coverage, I argue that Blanca’s picture instead offers a counternarrative that challenges stereotypes by destabilizing the traditional tourist gaze through the mise-en-scène. By further cloaking his critique in the supernatural, the director plays with documentary tropes in a way that spurs the viewer to think about tourism beyond the news. In giving space to individual local voices and experiences, he lets us explore the deep affect that the tourist landscapes evoke in a constituency that is all too often left outside the frame.

KEYWORDS:

• Mass tourism
• Magaluf
• Balconing
• tourist gaze
• Spanish cinema

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Boogaloo Films for providing a screener of the film for the purposes of writing this essay.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Visitor numbers to Mallorca had been steadily climbing since a drop in 2008 following the global economic crisis and reaching a height of approximately 14 million in 2017. For more details, see: https://www.statista.com/statistics/448535/yearly-number-of-international-tourists-visiting-the-balearic-islands/. Canyelles and Vives provide a comprehensive study of the growth of the resort area and how its mythic status has been cultivated and sustained (2020).

2 In response to the wide-ranging effects of mass tourism, which have included the highest increase in housing prices in Spain (“Baleares” 2023), Mallorca has taken the lead in promulgating new laws that regulate tourism. These measures include a “circularity” and sustainability law (Pastor 2023) and a cap on the amount of work that cleaners can safely take on, including limiting the number of rooms for which they are responsible (Bohórquez 2023).

3 As Richter points out, this is not Blanca’s first treatment of mass tourism: his 2015 film, La extranjera, mixes documentary and sci-fi in its critique of “museum towns” that attract hordes of tourists (2022).

4 For more quantitative studies on various aspects of the impact of mass market tourism on Mallorca, see Deyà Tortella and Tirado (hotel water consumption, 2011); Rodríguez-Mireles et al. (effects on local diet, 2018); Bafaluy et al. (climate change options, 2013); and Caponi (solid waste management, 2022), among many others. For an analysis of how economic crises have impacted the local reception to mass tourism, see Garau-Vadell, Gutiérrez Taño, and Díaz-Armas (2018).

5 Colom-Montero (2019, 51–53) provides a concise history of tourism in Mallorca from the nineteenth century, while Yrigoy’s critical analysis of the development of mass tourism in the specific urban areas of Palma and Magaluf is also very informative (2014). See also Martínez Tejero and Picornell (2023).

6 While Ryanair touts the “Ryanair effect” as one that “brings Europe together”, the environmental impact of mass tourism is clear (“The Ryanair Effect” 2018). It should also be noted that while Mallorca was constructed as a destination for European tourism, it has also drawn visitors from within the Spanish state. A memorable representation of the latter in the 1960s is Berlanga’s acclaimed film, El verdugo (1963), when the titular protagonist takes his new wife to Palma while hoping that he will not have to carry out his grim duties.

7 The ITV2 reality show The Magaluf Weekender ran from 2013–15 before relocating to Ibiza. Following British tourists (between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four) on short trips abroad, the popular program was nominated in the UK for Best Docu-Soap and won a National Reality Television Award for Best Social Experiment Show in 2013 (“The Big Reunion” 2013). For a study of the structure of overarching gendered social relations and the practice of gendered identities in the cultural space of Magaluf, see Andrews (2009), and for more on understanding the touristic behavior of young people and their identities, consult Casey (2020).

8 For more on modes of occupancy and the hotel, see Davidson, especially the Introduction and chapter 2’s discussion of the cinematic hotel (2018).

9 Balconing has inspired multiple cultural interpretations including: Catalina Carrasco’s contemporary dance play (2021); sarcastic representations of the phenomenon in countercultural products such as the Foc i Fum Mallorca Guide (2018); Mariona Obrador’s grotesque postcards (2015); and the cover of issue #2301 of El Jueves from June 2021 that depicts cartoon drawings of multiple tourist bodies. An off-color videogame also exists. In Balconing Simulator 2020, players try to successfully jump their ragdoll character into a hotel pool. The game’s description is harsh and directly references the spectacular nature of the stunt that seemingly motivates its participants: “Do you think you can reach that pool if you jump from your cozy apartment? This is surely the first question that comes to mind every time you enter the balcony of the great holiday hotel you are staying in and look at the pool, it's definitely close enough. But fear not, Balconing Simulator offers you that enriching experience with practically no risks for your integrity, including perfect steps, stupid decisions, late night beverages and more importantly the fun of the magic moment in a super cinematic way” (Fancy + Punk 2020).

10 For an excellent documentary on balconing, attempts to raise awareness in tourists and on mass tourism in Mallorca in general, see Vides precipitades (Perelló 2018).

11 Sa Porrassa is also unofficially known as “Big Swiller’s Island” by British holidaymakers, for whom swimming to it and back while drunk is considered to be a rite of passage.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bob Davidson

Bob Davidson is Professor of Spanish & Catalan Studies at the University of Toronto, faculty at the Culinaria Research Centre and Director of the Northrop Frye Centre, Victoria College. He is the author of Jazz Age Barcelona (2009) and The Hotel: Occupied Space (2018) and is currently researching a new project entitled The Scent of Spain: Fragrance, Odour and Culture. Professor Davidson is founder and coeditor of the Toronto Iberic book series at University of Toronto Press, where he also serves as Chair of the Manuscript Review Committee. In 2022, he was accorded the Josep Maria Batista i Roca-Memorial Enric Garriga Trullols Award for the promotion of the Catalan Language and Culture abroad. Email: [email protected]