In the series ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ the grand and gruesome is often light and witty

You have founded a city in a swamp, you are the ancestor of an illustrious family, father of a legendary rebel leader, and then you end up confused and weathered, tied to a thick tree in your own courtyard.

That happens to José Arcadio Buendía, one of the main characters One hundred years of loneliness (Cien años de soledad), the 1967 novel by Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014). The Colombian writer’s work has served dozens of times as a source for a film or a series, but Márquez resisted in his life against the film adaptation of his most famous book. It was impossible to do justice to the packed book in a film, he thought.

But fortunately Netflix has turned it into a sixteen-part series. The first eight episodes are now online, the rest will follow next year. The broad scope and repetitiveness of a series prove to be very suitable for a faithful film adaptation of the novel. Unlike the book, the series is a linear narrative, focusing on the first two generations in the first half.

In a lush design in brown tones, with archetypal characters, it tells One hundred years of loneliness the wide-ranging story of the 19th-century Colombian couple Buendía, their village Macondo, and their descendants. The founding father is a hero who loses himself in his dreams – cartography, alchemy, inventions. The matriarch is, in her own words, “the voice of reason in a family of madmen.” The son becomes a revolutionary hero in the endless Colombian civil wars. This colonel and his sisters are the eternally lonely ones the title refers to, because they do not find love, or lose it, or reject it.

Supernatural elements

Once again it appears that García Márquez wrote the Bible of Latin America: a mythical history with supernatural elements presented as self-evident – ​​the writer is the father of realismo magico. Macondo begins as an idyllic, primitive place, where no one dies in the first thirty years after its foundation. The village is slowly being ruined by the arrival of the state, the church, land ownership, war.

The series offers an irresistible, attractive world to immerse yourself in. The strange tone of the novel is well captured: the grand and gruesome about it is often light and witty, like the village dictator parading around in a Napoleon costume. In the beginning, love is the only cloud in the sky over Macondo. But the later episodes focus on the violence that has been tearing Colombia apart for so long.

Once again it appears that García Márquez wrote the Bible of Latin America

Favorite episode is the one about insomnia, one of the many Old Testament-style plagues that affect Macondo. Orphaned niece Rebeca, who travels with her parents’ bones in a bag, brings chronic insomnia to Macondo, which in turn leads to widespread forgetfulness. In a vain attempt to prevent this, residents leave notes everywhere. There is a note next to the eggs: “Eggs come from chicken.” Or: “Sitting in the sun for a long time makes me angry.” And under the place name sign: “God exists.” Don’t forget.

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