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Solarbabies and the Denver Mine
The surviving structures of the Denver mining plant hang precariously off the hillside above the town of Rodalquilar, inside the Cabo de Gata Natural Park. When the mine was constructed during the 1950s, it was believed there were vast gold deposits hidden under ground. But the state-sponsored enterprise failed to meet expectations and the mine was abandoned in 1966. In the summer of 1985, the site was turned into a post-apocalyptic prison camp for Solarbabies. In the film, a mysterious police state controls the planet’s water resources, but a rebellious group of adolescents (including actors Jami Gertz and Jason Patric) escape […]
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Cortijo del Fraile
Federico Garcia Lorca based his play Blood Wedding on actual events that occurred in 1928. The ill-fated wedding was to take place at the Cortijo where the bride lived with her father. Hours before the wedding, she attempted to elope with her cousin instead, but he was shot and killed by the groom’s brother before they could get away. In his stage directions, Lorca suggests the bride’s home appears in a “panorama of brownish plains, everything hardened like a landscape of ceramic.” The interior of the cortijo served as Indio’s hideout in For a Few Dollars More (1965), and the […]
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The Denver Mine 1
The surviving structures of the Denver mining plant hang precariously off the hillside above the town of Rodalquilar, inside the Cabo de Gata natural park. The buildings still bear black painted letters–”Dorm Block B,” “Guard Block D”–from a movie production almost 30 years ago. The foundations of the separation tanks create enormous circles at the bottom of the hill. Across the plain lies the Mediterranean ocean. The mining industry transformed the landscape of Almeria during the nineteenth century as modern technology allowed for large scale exploitation of iron, lead and other resources. Activity slowed during the Spanish Civil War in […]
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