Netflix took a risky gamble. With “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, from December 11, the platform streaming ventured into the adaptation of a literary monument. One more? Yes, but the novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Marquez (1927-2014) had until now been deemed unadaptable.
A work long considered unadaptable
Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1982, the writer even warned of the difficulties of any form of adaptation to anyone who would take on such an enterprise. Director Emir Kusturica, who had once thought about transposing it to the big screen, finally gave up. That the more than 400 pages of what is recognized as one of the greatest novels ever written can be translated to the screen is one thing. Expressing “magical realism” was a whole other adventure…
A destiny that fascinates
Seven episodes of around an hour each immerse us in the destiny of the Buendía family on which a strange curse falls. Through a true epic spanning several generations (from the mid-19th century), the entire lives of its members, forced into exile, but also of an entire community which will found the small fictitious Colombian village of Macondo, comes to light. like an epic story.
It is dense, plural, dramatic, funny and burlesque at the same time. Made of human adventures, myths, beliefs, always on a tightrope between life and death, punctuated by mysteries, plagues, illnesses, ghosts too, violence and sex. It exerts a real fascination on the viewer. Journey to an unknown land, where reality never departs from a fantastic and dreamlike dimension…
The mystical atmosphere of the restored work
If it does not have the density of the novel and necessarily leaves less space for the viewer's imagination than the (long) sentences with the singular flavors of García Marquez, the series manages to restore the climate. And rather better than expected.
Carried by South American actors whose name or face (José Rivera, Claudio Cataño, Moreno Borja, etc.) will attract Western crowds, the restitution carried out has managed to preserve the breath, the alchemy, the mystical atmosphere of the work. The Solitude of each of its characters, too. Like that of Father Buendía, fascinated by the discovery, a crazy dreamer… who will hardly see his descendants grow up.
Undoubtedly difficult to transpose, certain subtleties of the text, its symbolism and its depth, sometimes escape the camera. But this one remains inspired. Faced with the fictional universe and the family destiny that it depicts, the “One Hundred Years of Solitude” series does not, however, miss the original reflection on Latin American society, its history and some of its founding events.
From the small screen to the novel
No doubt the end-of-year holiday period is ideal for a passionate immersion into the heart of this series as atypical as the novel it adapts. We will savor our time there, in the absence of binge watcher. To be preferred, obviously, in its original Spanish version with subtitles. We also imagine that its viewing will invite many to (re)read the novel by Gabriel García Marquez (ed. Points), which has already sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.
