Magaluf Ghost Town: Dropping the Curtain on Low-Cost Tourism
Written by Marisa Bianco
Photo Credit Catalan Films
On the island of Mallorca, the Spanish beach town Magaluf has an extravagant reputation in both Spain and the UK. As an American living in Spain, I had never heard of it, but my British friends immediately recognized Magaluf. They could speak to its infamy as a cheap, revelrous destination for young Brits. Magaluf has been the subject of British reality shows such as “Geordie Shore” (a variation on Jersey Shore) and sensationalized news stories that have created a self-fulfilling prophecy in the town. The TV cameras flock there because of its reputation for wild and uninhibited tourism. In turn, the airing of the news stories and reality shows further increases its notoriety, attracting more foreigners who are inclined to public debauchery.
Director Miguel Ángel Blanca subverts this expectation for derangement. Instead, he points the camera toward the Magaluf locals in his new documentary Magaluf Ghost Town, which premiered at the 2021 Hot Docs Festival. Blanca casts an array of Magaluf locals from different places and generations who he films reenacting events in their lives as well as their dreams and fantasies. These characters are shown inside their homes, close-up and intimately. We never see tourists like this. Instead, we see them as the locals see them—from afar, in the background, seemingly from another planet. In this way, the film invites us to question our perspective. Why are we drawn to, at least in part, the sensationalization of the revelry and fornication? The news stories and reality TV specials wouldn’t exist without a willing audience who wants to see these tourists’ uninhibited escapades. The film confronts us with this. We want the camera to zoom in, to look closer at the tourists. Instead, they are lurking around the characters. When the camera finally points to them, the score changes to something resembling a horror soundtrack.
The film’s narrative is both circular and linear. The first thing we hear is children whisper-singing a song, in English, about Magaluf. The lyrics are bright and optimistic (“The sun is always high down here in Magaluf”), but the whispers are thoroughly chilling. While the song plays, we see the manufacturing of an aerial model of Magaluf that becomes a motif throughout the film. The camera keeps returning to the model’s tiny hotels and golf courses between scenes. After the model is built, the film opens to the real Magaluf, empty before the high season, with scenes of a quiet beach accompanied by a lullaby-like score. As the tourists arrive, the lullaby shifts to the horror music.
The film ends when the tourists leave. It’s a complete circle—the hotels are quiet once again, and the lullaby soundtrack returns. When the visuals fade to black, we again hear the whisper-singing children. As the credits roll, the children’s voices disappear into the 1987 cult hit “Come to Magalluf” by Brios. The seamless transition from a silent accompaniment to 1980s disco-pop is eerie, as we realize the children were singing the pop song all along.
Photo Credit Catalan Films
The main characters are Tere, an older woman mourning her late husband who, out of economic necessity, takes in a Malian flatmate, Cheickne, and Rubén, a young gay student who aspires to be an actor, but feels trapped by Magaluf. Blanca introduces the characters with immediate life and death stakes. Tere is trying to quit smoking after a month-long stay in the hospital; she says that she must choose between smoking and her life. Rubén is doing a photoshoot with friends in a creepy shed where a man was allegedly burned alive. They take photos of each other playing dead, laughing with a disturbing levity.
With these characters, we see that Magaluf isn’t just a “ghost town” when the tourists are gone. Magaluf and its residents have an unmistakable supernatural sensibility. Tere tells Cheikne about her nightmares. She says, “I can feel it in my bones, something is going to happen here...What is it? I don’t know. But there’s something.” Meanwhile, Rubén says that people in Magaluf are “excited that something incredible could happen.” This idea of premonition is felt differently among the two generations, but the expectancy is there nonetheless.
The film’s climax revolves around a culmination of the supernatural within the characters. Rubén and his boyfriend kidnap a British tourist and take him to an uninhabited island just off the coast of Magaluf, where they take his clothes and abandon him. This abduction is interrupted by a scene of Tere seeing a medium, who tells her that her late husband has not yet crossed from our world. Another character, Russian real estate agent Olga, talks to her daughter about how she can feel the presence of people who have died. She says “don’t be afraid” that someone is with us, but unnerving music plays in the background. Despite her assurance, I am very much afraid.
Just as the characters explore the boundary between our world and the world of fantasmas (ghosts and spirits), the film explores the boundary between fiction and reality. The kidnapping scene is made to look real, as Blanca intersperses his footage with clips of the boys’ Instagram or Snapchat stories with messages like “Buscando víctimas.” I almost wondered whether I was watching an actual abduction. This confusion is intentional—everything we see is meant to be uncertain. With Blanca’s camera, nightmares and fantasies are made real.
Photo Credit Catalan Films
There is a constant sense throughout the film that Magaluf is a paradox. Rubén feels trapped; he expresses that their destiny is to go to school to learn to serve “guiris” (pale-skinned foreigners) and make guiris happy. At the same time, he feels that anything can happen in Magaluf, even something “magical.” Furthermore, the film portrays tourists like foreign invaders, wreaking havoc on the locals’ lives with their drunken exploits. But without the tourists, Magaluf wouldn’t have an economy. The locals wouldn’t be able to live. Is the solution then with Olga, the real estate agent who wants to clean up the town’s party strip and attract wealthier Europeans over the young vacationers? The mansion she shows contrasts so strikingly to Tere and Rubén’s cramped quarters. Her vision doesn’t necessarily seem like a more attractive option.
I watched Magaluf Ghost Town twice, before and after a weekend on the beach. I was in Fuengirola on Spain’s Costa del Sol, another popular Mediterranean destination among British tourists and retirees. Fuengirola is the type of town built for holiday-makers, full of hotels and apartment rentals with balconies and terraces looking towards the sea or the mountains. It lacks the Spanish character found in other towns in the region. Watching the film’s dichotomy between the “guiris” and the locals was strange because I felt like I didn’t belong in either box. Despite being considered a “guiri” for speaking English, I am not necessarily a tourist. Am I blending into the town’s fabric of locals, or am I a tourist invader? I don’t know the answer, but I know that Blanca’s perspective has made me look at myself and this country I call my second home in a new way.
Magaluf Ghost Town is the type of documentary that is not only beautifully shot but also defies the rules of documentary filmmaking, making it even more memorable and emotionally stirring.
Title: Magaluf Ghost Down
Director: Miguel Ángel Blanca
Running Time: 93 minutes
Year: 2021
