35/49
In the timeless city of Macondo, seven generations of the Buendía family navigate love, oblivion, and the inevitability of their past and destiny. This is Netflix’s most expensive Latin American project to date, with Colombian groups and indigenous communities creating the series’ props and sets. Adapting One Hundred Years of Solitude for film seems like a particularly difficult task for two main reasons. First, the novel belongs to a specific literary movement pioneered by South American writers, most notably Gabriel García Márquez, where the story is told through a blend of reality and fantasy. At times, this fusion is so intense that it seems impossible to separate the two. Naturally, translating these scenes into film runs the risk of appearing absurd and falling short of a satisfying cinematic form. However, after watching the first episode of One Hundred Years of Solitude, it became clear that the creators managed to convey this magical, surreal feeling to the audience without it coming across as ridiculous. The second reason is the inherent complexity of the novel. One Hundred Years of Solitude is difficult to read due to the constant use of identical names for different characters, as well as the nonlinear narrative and frequent breaks in the timeline. These elements can tire the reader. Fortunately, such problems do not exist in the series, which successfully transformed the nonlinear narrative into a linear one, allowing for a strong connection with the audience. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is one of the biggest TV and streaming premieres this month. Find out more in our December calendar!