Sit seemed impossible to bring Gabriel García Márquez’s novel to TVand instead, One Hundred Years of Solitude: Part 1, on Netflix from today 11 December, it doesn’t make you regret even for a minute the complexity of Macondo, the paper world created by the Colombian writer. From ice to love, from sex to revolution, every component of the book is developed perfectly in the eight episodes of this first part.
One Hundred Years of Solitude Part 1the plot of the Netflix series
The story opens within the walls of a decaying building, on a decomposing body attacked by ants. A hand caresses the pages of dusty bookspangs of mysterious drawings and symbols including the Ouroboros. In a remote village in Colombia, we celebrate the marriage between José Aureliano Buendía (Marco Antonio González) e Ursula Iguaran (Susana Morales).
The only one who is very annoyed by this union is Ursula’s mother. The two spouses are cousins. For this kinship, children could be born that look like iguanas. It is said that a union between blood relatives produced a newborn half child, half pig.
Ursula is so scared from these superstitions to wear the chastity belt. The months pass: José Aureliano breeds fighting cocks while his wife embroiders and cooks. During one of the competitions, José’s animal wins against that of Fulgencio Aguilar. When Fulgencio makes an unfortunate joke about José’s sexual life and is challenged to a duel by him and killed.
This dramatic moment triggers unpredictable events. After his death, Fulgencio materializes as a ghost in the home of the two young people. At first, José and Ursula try to live with this otherworldly presence. Then, more and more obsessed and scared, they give up. They abandon their village never to return. Followed by a group of inhabitants ready for adventure, they head towards the sea beyond the greenhouse, in order to banish their fears and those of their ancestors.
Susana Morales (Úrsula) and Marco Antonio González (José Arcadio Buendía) in “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. (Netflix)
The masterpiece by Gabriel García Márquez and Macondo on Netflix
The journey is much more complicated and dangerous than expected. Finally, defeated and embittered, they arrive in the middle of the forest without having met the sea. And here José Aureliano has something like a vision. It must establish its own in that place a new village and name it Macondo. Initially made up of 20 houses along the river, it is a magical place, where there is no need for a cemetery because no one will die anyway.
A village where the singing of birds, in cages hanging on every porch, is festive and noisy. The first child to be born in Macondo is little José Arcadio, free to wander around naked and happy among the hard-working and attentive inhabitants.
A spring, the gypsies led by Melquiades (Moreno Borja) they reach Macondo attracted by the noise of the birds. They carry magical items with them and wonderful like two big magnetswith which to amaze the villagers. The one most affected is Aureliano: with the hope of finding coins and chests in the center of the earth, he buys them in exchange for the goats. Despite having warned him of the impossibility of his undertaking, after the inevitable failure Melquiades consoles the poor Aureliano. And a true friendship is born between the two.
The gypsy Melquiades and the knowledge of ice
The gypsy teaches the young man to use maps, to orient yourself with navigation tools. Over the years, introduces him to the secrets of alchemy. While José Aureliano is absorbed in these bizarre studies, Ursula tries in every way to find the money to feed the family. Helped by her friend and neighbor Pilar Ternera (Viña Machado), she cooks and sells – and profitably – animal-shaped caramel sweets at the market.
Ursula gives birth to Aureliano (Claudio Cataño), which announces itself by crying in its mother’s womb and born with open eyes. His are the gifts of foresight. The years pass: Jdaring Arcadio is now a restless man and rebellious.
His sexual vitality conquers the older Pilar While in the Buendia family he arrives a third child, a little girl named Amaranta (Luna Ruíz). To the family of StI will finally add Rebeca (Nicole Montenegro), an orphan who travels with her parents’ bones in a bag. In Spring, the gypsies return: José Aureliano brings his children with him to greet his friend Melquiades but he learns that the man is presumed dead in the shallows of Singapore.
A man opens a chest containing a shiny and immense piece of ice. And their life changes from that moment, it winds and rewinds following a cyclical future. The living and the dead follow one another among wars, places and people, for a long time the story already written inside the tail of an Ouroboros.
Claudio Cataño is Colonel Aureliano Buendía. (Netflix)
One hundred years of solitudethe review of the TV series
«Many years later, facing the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember that remote afternoon in which his father had taken him to discover ice». It is the incipit, among the most beautiful in literatureOf One hundred years of solitude (1967): extraordinary story set in a city that never existed, between burning loves, floods, drought, hostile and lush nature.
The Netflix series has succeeded in the amazing feat of bringing beauty to the screen and magical realism of the novel to build a composite and very lively world before our eyes. Episode after episode, every character, dialogue and camera movement is drawn faithfully the events of the Buendía dynasty, its triumphs and fall.
Directors Alex García López (The Witcher) and Laura Mora (The Kings of the World) divided the direction of the episodes almost equally, keeping the mammoth production on track together. I am managed to integrate any reference to the dreamlike and the supernatural into everyday life, without falling into ridicule. They focused on the spaces – from aquatic visions to the quiet of the countryside – often letting the landscape take precedence over the story, for an effective imaginative transposition of the novel.
Finally, they have able to express all the erotic charge of the book without giving in to any exhibition an end in itself. Every component of life is included in a larger design, exactly like in Marquez. From the solitude of the title, true tragedy and family curse, to sensual love, defined by José Aureliano as a plague. And the tension between these two feelings never abandons the protagonists.
Marco Antonio González (center) is José Arcadio Buendía. (Netflix)
The cast and when it comes out
The series, on Netflix from December 11th, And one of the most expensive and demanding television productions in Latin American history, with an organizational time of 6 years. It was filmed along the line of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Colombia, the writer’s homeland. The children by Garcia Márquez not only that they gave their approval but they had an active part in the project.
The cast is made up mainly of Colombian actors. In choral work, highly effective, Claudio Cataño stands out, a suffering and intense colonel Aureliano Buendía. But Moreno Borja is also perfect as the mysterious Melquiades.
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