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Adapting One Hundred Years of Solitude into a film seems like an extremely difficult task for two main reasons
Chronology
In the timeless town of Macondo, seven generations of the Buendía family experience love, oblivion, and the inevitability of their past and destiny. This is Netflix’s most expensive Latin American project to date, with Colombian groups and indigenous communities building the series’ props and sets.
At times, this fusion is so intense that it seems impossible to separate the two
First, this novel belongs to a specific literary movement pioneered by South American writers, especially Gabriel García Márquez, where the story is told by fusing reality and fantasy. Of course, translating such scenes into cinema risks appearing absurd and not achieving a satisfactory cinematic form.
The second reason is the inherent complexity of the novel
However, upon watching the first episode of the series One Hundred Years of Solitude, it became clear that the creators managed to convey this magical and surreal feeling to the audience without seeming ridiculous. Reading One Hundred Years of Solitude is challenging due to the multiple use of the same names for different characters, as well as the non-linear narrative and frequent disruption of the timeline.
These elements can exhaust the reader
Fortunately, such issues are absent from the series, which successfully transformed the non-linear narrative into a linear one, allowing it to establish a strong connection with the audience. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is one of the biggest TV and streaming premieres this month.