Netflix’s adaptation of this much-loved book is enchanting

One Hundred Years of Solitude
★★★★
Netflix

During his lifetime, Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez refused several Hollywood offers to adapt his 1967 novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, a landmark book that has sold more than 50 million copies. He reportedly believed its magical realism elements could not be recreated properly, and that the epic story, which follows the Buendia family over 100 years, could not be done justice in a standard 90-minute film. (He was also adamant that he didn’t want English-language actors playing the family.)

But since Garcia Marquez’s death, the streaming age has expanded storytelling possibilities, and his sons, Rodrigo Garcia and Gonzalo Garcia Barcha, gave their blessing to this expansive adaptation (and both act as executive producers). A series of 16 one-hour episodes is quite the commitment, but anyone who has read the book will appreciate that the sprawling story – released in two eight-episode blocks – has not been squeezed.

Some patience is advised for the first episode, which might feel like the 100 years alone, but bear with it; from the second episode on, this beautifully realised adaptation is incredible, and the leisurely pace becomes part of the joy of the story, which is amazingly faithful to its source material.

Made in Colombia with a local cast and in Spanish (you can watch the dubbed version, but the American accents do tend to grate), the series centres on multiple generations of the Buendia family, beginning in the 19th century with the wedding of loved-up Arcadio (Marco Antonio González) and Úrsula (Susana Morales), who, as first cousins, are discouraged from being together; Úrsula’s mother warns her of inbreeding, telling her their children will be monsters with pigs’ tails.

When another man mocks Arcadio about his wife, he kills him. He’s acquitted of the murder, but he and Úrsula are haunted by the man’s ghost (the supernatural and magical realism are merely quotidian events in this story), and, with several other villagers, he and Úrsula pack up and leave for a new start, trekking for two years in the hope of finding the ocean.

They don’t reach the ocean, instead building a village from the ground up in the middle of a swamp. The fictional Macondo, an idyllic socialist paradise, at least to begin with, which serves as the central location for the century-long saga, has been built in extraordinary detail for the big-budget series, outside the Colombian city of Ibague, and it, like everything else in the series, looks incredible. Even the camerawork feels somehow lyrical.

As the family expands and ages, the town is visited by science and magic in equal measure and, of course, there’s lots of sex. Some aspects of the novel have been toned down – there’s not so much incest or sexual assault, for example, although both the Buendia sons still get it on with their mum’s best mate, the mysterious tarot-card reader Pilar (Viña Machado).