Preferred settings
By a curious coincidence, the first film shot in the Canary Islands that we have any trace of is dedicated to the Chinyero volcano, the third largest in the world, which had its last eruption just one year earlier in 1909. The irruption of foreign productions, however, was slow to materialise. Until the 1960s, most of the films made in the Canary Islands were German, a sign that the strong predilection of German tourists for the archipelago was not new. Detlef Sierck, better known as Douglas Sirk, made La Habanera (1937) in which Gran Canaria played the role of Puerto Rico. This will become a constant, as if its aspect of theme park, with varied atmospheres, deprived the archipelago of its own identity, forcing it to constantly put on different disguises. The wild landscapes of this volcanic archipelago make it a perfect place to represent the confrontation between man and a nature that exceeds him. Thus, John Huston will drop anchor to shoot the last scenes of the famous Moby Dick (1956) towards the bay of El Confital in Las Palmas. Inhospitable nature, populated by monsters also in One Million Years B .C. (Don Chaffey, 1966). It doesn't matter that dinosaurs andhomo sapiens didn't exist at that time, or that Raquel Welch's hair is not prehistoric at all, this kitschy adventure film reaches the status of a curiosity thanks to its handmade special effects and above all the landscapes of the Canaries where it ventures as a pioneer: those of the Teide National Park in Tenerife, but also of Timanfaya and Lago Verde. He made a series of films with evocative titles(When Dinosaurs Ruled the World, Val Guest, 1970, shot in Fuerteventura, or The Sixth Continent, Kevin Connor, 1975, in La Palma). The Canary Islands then seemed to become a haven for "bis" or exploitation cinema: the ultra-prolific Jesús Franco came to shoot some of his films there, cocktails of horror and eroticism. The rocky shooting, a habit with Werner Herzog, of Les Nains ont commencé petits (1970), takes place in Lanzarote. The film, which relates the revolt of dwarfs locked up in an asylum, is unclassifiable. The same year, George Lautner signed The Road to Salina, a film that stands out in his work, where the desert areas near the Janubio salt flats are supposed to represent the Californian coast. When La Chevauchée terrible was filmed in the Canary Islands in 1975 (Antonio Margheriti), the spaghetti western was in decline, but, as a curious extension, the little town of the Far West, built for the occasion and located in the Cañon del Aguila in San Agustín, was transformed into an amusement park, Sioux City, which still exists today.
The fashion of space opera
In the 1980's, space opera is in fashion. The Canary Islands, whose geology resembles that of Mars in places, provide the scenery for Krull (Peter Yates, 1983) or Enemy (Wolfgang Petersen, 1985). Nothing that left a mark, nothing to be ashamed of either. Let's mention a very popular Swedish equivalent of the Bronzés, signed Lasse Åberg, which follows the Canary Islands equipment of a handful of tourists. Some episodes of the English series Doctor Who take the Canary Islands as a backdrop. Otherwise, the island witnesses a continuous landing of second- and third-rate productions, with a few exceptions, before Juan Carlos Fresnadillo breaks this routine with Intacto, a racy thriller that finally gives a Spanish insight. Not surprising for a director born in Santa Cruz.
The years 2000-2010
The production will then go from strength to strength. The film Broken Embraces (2009), a beautiful melodrama by Pedro Almodóvar, who fell under the spell of Lanzarote, the town of Arucas and the beach of Famara, can finally claim classic status. Aware that they had their feet on a gold mine, the local authorities increased the tax incentives and Hollywood blockbusters poured into the archipelago, like a luxurious version of the cinema bis that once prevailed. Peplums(Clash of the Titans, Louis Letterier in 2010 and its sequel), an episode of Fast & Furious ( Justin Lin's 6th in 2013), one of Star Wars ( Soloin 2018 by Ron Howard who returns three years after filming a new Melville-inspired story, In the Heart of the Ocean) or even series in shambles (TheWitcher to name one). Wild Oats (Andy Tennant, 2016) is a frivolous tourist film, but at least it celebrates the archipelago for what it is. This was done in a more serious way in 2011 by The Colour of the Ocean (Maggie Peren), which contrasted the lives of the tourists with those of the migrants stranded on the island. Iberian cinema has shown some encouraging signs of late, with The Song of the Birds, 2008 by Alberto Serra, the current pope of Spanish auteur cinema, a horror film in 2009 by Gabe Ibáñez and a crime series in 2019 sharing the name of the archipelago's most remote island, Hierro, while a - lengthy - big-screen historical fresco, Palm Trees in the Snow (Fernando González Molina, 2015) shows an ever-varying inspiration. Finally, in 2019, Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu directs The Whistlers, in which a corrupt Bucharest inspector is shipped to the Canary Islands to learn the silbo.
