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‘Appelsinpiken’ and experiential tourism. Andalusia, ‘geography with a thrill’
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to analyse the context in which ‘Appelsinpiken’ (‘The Orange Girl’, Eva Dahr, 2008) was filmed, and also the image of tourism in Seville that the films suggests as a reduction of the image of Andalusia and Spain in the Nordic collective conscience. In keeping with the canons of Romanticism and the premises of ‘experiential tourism’, Seville’s colourful appearance in the film is limited to promoting the city as a tourism destination that is utterly stuck in the past : an audiovisual appeal to the tourist ego via the emotional vision of the phenomenon of a journey.For this analysis, a qualitative study is conducted of both Andalusia’s importance as a destination for the Norwegian tourism market and the contrast between the two images of Seville, so far apart in time, described by two Nordic writers-tourists, (Andersen and Gaarder), along with the reactions to the shooting and première of ‘Appelsinpiken’. These methods will help Sevillians come face to face with their own stereotypes and demonstrate the need to do away with banal clichés and straitjacketing. Seville’s enduring mythical image for tourism, a legacy of 19th century romantic travellers and of films coproduced in the nineteen-fifties and sixties, is brought up to the present day and enhanced with the experiential perspective embodied in this barely known film, which, despite having little resonance in Spain, nonetheless was filmed with the support of the Seville Film Office, the regional government’s TV and radio broadcasting service (Canal Sur) and Jaleo Films. Seville, shown with a fractured identity, a mix of iconic images and realities, misses the opportunity to present itself on the big screen as it really is.
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