Gabriel García Márquez famously thought his 1967 magical realism epic was so densely loaded with narrative that he refused all requests for a film adaption in his lifetime.
But chances are, ten years after his death, he would have given Netflix’s take on One Hundred Years of Solitude (OHYOS) the thumbs up.
The television series is so committed to Márquez’s masterwork that it’s created an eight hour epic – and this is only series one, with the streaming giant having signed on to produce the second half of the novel. It is screen service on a JRR Tolkien scale. Yet, while The Hobbit is overstretched to the point where you wonder if Bilbo Baggins might be filmed waiting in line at the Post Office, OHYOS thankfully keeps things moving at a quick pace.
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OHYOS follows the Buendía family over several generations in a 19th century version of Márquez’s native Colombia. Progressing, just about chronologically, the action begins with the first generation, cousins José Arcadio and Ursula, fleeing their town to travel to establish and develop their newly found town Macondo. There, they raise an expanding number of children, who gradually take over the narrative, as the family tries to find its way amid conflict, sickness and stress.
Úrsula (played with gravitas by Susana Morales and later Marleyda Soto) is the unsung heroine who anchors the family as headstrong José Arcadio (Marco González and later Diego Vásquez) proceeds to recklessly abandon his family in pursuit of his passions and interests. Their children Aureliano (Jerónimo Barón), Jose Arcadio (Leonardo Soto), Amaranta (Loren Sofía Paz), and Rebeca (Akima) are all well cast too, and bring the big emotions this type of subject matter demands.
As ever with a Netflix production, this is one of expanse and expense. The beauty of the Colombian forests feel almost wasted on the small screen, while more than 1,000 set designers and builders were on hand to build and dismantle Macondo as it went through the changes over the years.
What is unusual, however, for the streaming service is that this is not one to binge. Generations change within the hour hour episode time. There are no cliffhangers. The magic, lust, science, theory and comment on display all make it engaging – but the scale and scope of the production zooms out from any immediate or nail biting action in favour of telling a cohesive, epic story. That said, in the three episodes seen by the reviewer, there was no holding back from any of the gore or sex contained in the book.
Marquez’s family have supported the production and gave it their blessing with the insistence that it was filmed in Spanish and used local actors. For that reason it is a more authentic watch in the original language (I write having watched the first in a slightly-awkwardly dubbed English). OHYOS feels a magnificent achievement and those involved (including the legion of first time actors) would be rightly proud to have, finally, brought the classic story onto a screen of some sort.
All eight episodes of One Hundred Years of Solitude are available on Netflix from Wednesday, December 11.
