A cumbersome folklore?
Andalusia, with its calientes and, as it were, sun-drenched regions, is nevertheless recreated in españoladas, a term used to designate those works which, in the tradition of Romanticism and Carmen, for example, fantasize about a Spain made of junk. Anecdotal, they capitalize on a mythology associated with the region, peddling the same commonplaces over and over again. And after all, it's an old tradition in Spain, known as costumbrismo, to replace reality with folklore, which is sometimes fabricated. Audiences love it, and it's only logical that they should be served. La Reine Maure (José Buchs, 1922), inspired by a zarzuela, a type of Spanish sung theater, helped pave the way for cinema. Then Florián Rey, from La Almunia, became a specialist in this kind of film, and his first talking picture, for example, is Football, amour, corrida (1929) - although it's not clear whether the order matters. He also launched the career of one of the stars of the era, known by the pseudonym Imperio Argentina. A singer and actress, she made a name for herself in an adaptation of Carmen, Nuits en Andalousie (Herbert Maisch, 1938), filmed partly in Seville, but mainly in studios in Germany - a sign of the popularity abroad of cinema full of local color - and whose musical numbers are still of some interest.Españolada would never be as popular as in the 50s and 60s, in films with evocative titles that are unlikely to go down in history, such as Tourism is a Great Invention (Pedro Lazaga, 1968) or Forty Degrees in the Shade (Mariano Ozores, 1967).
Andalusia in disguise
A famous film set in Castile satirizes this taste for the Andalusian picturesque. Welcome Mr Marshall (Luis Garcia Berlanga, 1953) recounts the imposture to which Castilian villagers are reduced in order to obtain American subsidies: to flatter their taste for folklore, they improvise themselves as a typical Andalusian village. Is reversibility an indication of Andalusia's ability to transform itself and adopt all kinds of disguises? The list goes on: David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962) recreates the desert of Jordan in the dunes of Cabo de Gata, Damascus thanks to the complicity of the Hotel Alfonso XIII in Seville, or an oriental town on the beach of El Algarrobico. Buoyed by his success, and clearly inspired, Lean returned to shoot Doctor Zhivago (1965), in which the natural landscapes of the provinces of Cadiz and Granada were used to represent the Urals. Spaghetti westerns used these wild and spectacular landscapes, particularly those of the Sierra Nevada, to represent the American West. Sergio Leone, for example, scoured Andalusia, its picturesque villages and the Tabernas Desert, in search of locations for his westerns, notably the trilogy that made him famous(Pour une poignée de dollars, 1964 / Pour quelques dollars de plus, 1965 / Le Bon, la Brute et le Truand, 1966), or Il était une fois la révolution (1971), in which the Almería train station takes on the role of the bank that arouses the protagonists' lust. This legacy has led to the creation of amusement parks and tourist circuits, as well as a tribute by Alex de la Iglesia, 800 Bullets (2002), in which former stuntmen defend the abandoned sets of that era, now threatened with destruction. What could be more logical, then, than to recreate imaginary universes in Star Wars(Attack of the Clones, Georges Lucas, 2002) or Game of Thrones - or even illogical to find Tom Cruise, who seems to be very fond of the city, in Seville during Holy Week amidst parades that actually take place... in Valencia(Knight and Day, James Mangold, 2010). In Meurs un autre jour (Lee Tamahori, 2002) Halle Berry emerges from the water on an Andalusian beach, which is supposed to be in Cuba, as confirmed by a later vision of the Castillo de Santa Catalina. Conversely, Youssef Chahine's Destiny (1997) , which presents a rare image of Andalusia under Moorish rule, was not shot in the region. Hollywood flouts verisimilitude, and Andalusia, the land of legends, does it justice. The Plaza de España, the Alcázar and the baths of doña Maria de Padilla in Seville, the Alhambra in Granada will never wear out.
Down with the masks!
So it's up to the Spanish directors to scratch this somewhat... shall we say, postictal surface. La Sabina (José Luis Borau, 1979), which evokes a local legend about a dragon woman, was an unusual big-budget production for its time. Carlos Saura devoted a trilogy to flamenco, with Noces de sang (1981), Carmen (1983) and L'Amour sorcier (1986), followed by a number of documentaries. Pedro Almodovar made only brief forays into the region, for La Loi du désir (1987), while the deeply moving Parle avec elle (2002) is partly set in Cordoba and its surrounding province - a wedding takes place in the sanctuary of the Virgen de Araceli. The parents' house in Julieta (2016) is set in the small town of Mairena del Alcor. The tranquility of an English mobster enjoying a peaceful retirement in the village of Agua Amarga is disturbed by the arrival of one of his former colleagues in the excellent Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000). After becoming an international star, Antonio Banderas returned home to Malaga to film an autobiographically inspired tale of learning(Summer Rain, 2006). Captain Alatriste (Agustín Díaz Yanes, 2006), a historical fresco starring Viggo Mortensen, focuses on towns in the province of Jaén, such as Úbeda and Baeza. Blancanieves (Pablo Berger, 2012) is a baroque, silent variation on Snow White, set among the bullfighters of Seville in the 1920s. It's curious that the other great Spanish director, Victor Erice, was never able to shoot the second part of The South (1988), set in the region, for lack of money, and will join the pantheon of unfinished and mythical films like Orson Welles' Don Quixote. The 90s and 2000s also saw the emergence of a social cinema. Chus Gutiérrez evokes gypsy culture in Alma gitana (Chus Gutiérrez, 1996), Solas (Benito Zambrano, 1999), or the dramas of illegal immigration in Retour à Hansala (Chus Gutiérrez, 2008), Andalucía (Alain Gomis, 2007) or Andalousie, mon amour (Mohamed Nadif, 2011). La Isla Minima (Alberto Rodríguez, 2014), a highly successful crime thriller set in the marshes and rice paddies along the Guadalquivir, is yet further proof of the Spaniards' predilection for genre cinema. Ocho apellidos vascos (Emilio Martinez-Lazaro, 2014), a fairly recent comedy hit, is of some interest in that it pokes fun at stubborn stereotypes about Andalusians.
