Netflix’s adaptation of ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE is a wondrous and gorgeous work of art. This terrific adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s groundbreaking 1967 novel received plenty of accolades but not as much attention as it deserved, and I’m hoping this post will do its tiny part in rectifying that.
This novel of magical realism influenced generations of Latin American writers. I read it many years ago and remember being mesmerized by its episodic multi-generation plot, strangeness, and often melancholy tone fitting its themes of solitude, fate, and how history repeats itself. Magical realism can be challenging to do right in a screen adaptation, however, and the sprawling nature of the novel seemed to outright defy the possibility, with Márquez apparently stating he wrote it to prove a written work can be so much bigger than any cinematic production.
Nonetheless, this adaptation captures all of the beauty, melancholy, and wonder of the source work. In this story, the Buendía family travels deep into the wilderness to found a new town and a simple, naive society based on harmony, which is constantly challenged internally by love and betrayal and externally by government and eventually civil war. Spanning several family generations, these primal and cycling events are given an almost mythical flavor by the story’s magical realism, which includes ghosts, a plague of insomnia, a trail of blood announcing a death, and the stars turning into yellow flowers that rain on the town. The acting is solid, and the world is beautiful and visually lush and fun to explore. I found myself completely charmed by this show and was sorry to see it conclude.
The eight episodes comprising the first season cover the first third of the novel, with a second season already in the works that will cover the rest of the story. I’m looking forward to catching the rest of this extraordinary adaptation.
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