One Hundred Years of Solitude Review: This Netflix Adaptation Has Everything in Its Right Place (Image: netflix.com)
When Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (Spanish: Cien anos de soledad) is streaming on Netflix, there will always be an anticipation on how the great multi-generational story of the Buendia family, whose patriarch, Jose Arcadio Buendia, founded the fictitious town of Macondo, is told or visualised. If you have grown up listening to the trivia and lores of one of the supreme achievements in world literature of last century, you would have two identities when you watch One Hundred Years of Solitude on Netflix; one of the viewer you approach it as series, and another of who watches an adaptation of a fictional work that has been translated into 46 languages and sold more than 50 million copies world over.
What you will see on Netflix is, it is a fact that not an observation of a reviewer, that with this series, you will experience a perfect visual representation of one of the best stories written by the Colombian writer-journalist Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s and read by millions. The series One Hundred Years of Solitude, originally made in Spanish, will obviously going to be a benchmark addition in the ongoing discourse on whether will the movie/series adaptations of great fictional works would deliver or not. Directed by Alex Garcia Lopez and Laura Mora (Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord fame), One Hundred Years of Solitude series captures the beauty and the magic of words of the book beautifully and aptly when it comes costumes, imaginary locales, characterisation, production design and above all, the magic realism the book is famous for.
This write came across One Hundred Years of Solitude in a college library two decades ago. Although I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book then, my memory of the magical, dreamy town of Macondo by the river, and its characters—Jose Arcadio Buendia, Ursula Iguaran, Colonel Aureliano Buendia, Amaranta, Arcadio, Pilar Ternera, among others—has faded. However, the story’s generational evolution and its intricate dance between magical realism and relatable depictions of the emergence of civilization and human behavior have remained vivid in my mind. The series, was like a psychological treatment which in a way recapitulated the enchanting Macondo back to my senses.
One Hundred Years of Solitude Review: This Netflix Adaptation Has Everything in Its Right Place (Image: netflix.com)
This writer was of the opinion and argument that moviemakers often fails to visualise actual meaning of a literary work, and always quotes Harry Potter books and RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire as examples. But, One Hundred Years of Solitude series will blow your mind away in its adaptation.
Read also: “Faithful Page-To-Screen Adaptation”: What Netflix’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ Reviews Say
At times, the poetic adaptation of the book by the creative geniuses of the makers is astounding. The scene in which Jose Arcadio Buendia leaves Macondo in search of sea with his two friends, you see Ursula and Arcadio looking through the window of their home – the scene transcends pure visual beauty and poetry in motion. You will feel the same with the scene in which Ursula runs to the jungle search of the Gypsies with whom Arcadio leaves Macondo.
The series efficiently captures the essence of the book in characterisation, one major example is how it picturises the transformation of Jose Arcadio Buendia from a village boy to the man who represents the human curiosity and daring of the restless minds who live and die for civilizational upliftment.
One Hundred Years of Solitude Review: This Netflix Adaptation Has Everything in Its Right Place (Image: netflix.com)
Like in the novel, in One Hundred Years of Solitude series as well, the characters would haunt you, and only difference when you compare both the mediums is that the characters bear faces, same as the locations are imbibed into actual hills and jungles. A fascinating fact about the visual representation is that, when you watch the series as well, the faces and the locations remain as the product of your imagination or understanding as it happened when you read the novel. This may be either advantage actors or the making. In another words, the power of the story overtakes the performances and the legacy or images created by the actors. Its an ambiguous call about the series that as your mind traverses between the stories and the depth of characters, who beat whom remains a mystery overall.
Read also: Moana 2 Review: Disney’s Polynesian Hero Repeats The Magic
In the creative world, a good percentage of stories are mostly about how people with power (of knowledge, political or trickery) survives. In One Hundred Years of Solitude series, you see story here is anchored in the power of enlightenment.
One Hundred Years of Solitude Review: This Netflix Adaptation Has Everything in Its Right Place (Image: netflix.com)
This series, ultimately, survives on the effectiveness of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s imagination and the spreading out of one detail to another or one story to another as the literary work embodies thousand stories in one book. Unlike many other movies or series, One Hundred Years of Solitude has not just hundred but there are thousand stories and you are really up for a treat with this adaptation.
Read also: Citadel: Honey Bunny Review – An Edge-Of-Your-Seat Thriller On Amazon Prime
