Garcia Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ Hits the Screens
Scene from ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude.’ X/ @Marucapelo
December 11, 2024 Hour: 10:06 am
The Colombian Nobel Prize winner’s most famous novel has been translated into 46 languages.
On Wednesday, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, the highly anticipated series based on the masterpiece by Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, premieres on Netflix. For the first time, this production brings the magical universe of Macondo to screens worldwide.
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Five years and nine months have passed since March 6, 2019, the day Netflix announced it had acquired the rights to adapt for television the novel Garcia Marquez published in 1967. Since then, the book has sold over 50 million copies and has been translated into 46 languages worldwide.
“It’s a different experience, and you have to try to appreciate it for what it is, not by constantly comparing it to the book. To me, they are sibling projects that complement each other,” said Rodrigo Garcia Barcha, who, along with his brother Gonzalo, is one of the executive producers of this adaptation.
The writer’s son acknowledges that “the biggest challenge initially was the decision (to adapt it for the screen) because for a long time, it was well known that Gabo was quite reluctant” to do so. Among his reasons were concerns that “a two- or three-hour movie wouldn’t encompass the entire novel” and that “budgetary needs might lead to casting Hollywood actors and making it in English.”
The same opening line of the novel, “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice,” is also the beginning of the adaptation commissioned by Netflix to Colombian production company Dynamo.
The Buendia Saga
Divided into two parts with eight episodes each, the series tells the story of cousins Jose Arcadio Buendia and Ursula Iguaran, who marry against the wishes of their superstitious parents. This triggers a tragedy that drives them to leave their hometown with friends. Months later, lost between the mountains and the marsh, they end up founding Macondo.
“It was about putting aside judgment to give Jose Arcadio all these nuances,” says Marco Antonio Gonzalez, the actor who portrays a young and dreamy Jose Arcadio Buendia, who eventually loses his sanity and ends up tied to a chestnut tree in his yard.
His co-star, Susana Morales, considers this first part of the series “a wonderful opportunity and a great honor to bring flesh, bones, and movement to Ursula,” one of the most powerful female figures in Latin American literature.
Garcia Marquez’s masterpiece narrates the saga of seven generations of the Buendia family, “tormented by madness, impossible loves, a bloody and absurd war, and the fear of a terrible curse that condemns them, with no hope, to one hundred years of solitude,” Netflix recalls.
A Production Worthy of the Book
The first eight episodes were alternately directed by Colombian Laura Mora and Argentine Alex Garcia Lopez, leading a team of over 100 actors and 200 crew members.
The mostly Colombian cast includes notable names such as Diego Vasquez (adult Jose Arcadio Buendia), Marleyda Soto (adult Ursula Iguaran), Claudio Cataño (Aureliano Buendia), Viña Machado (Pilar Ternera), Jairo Camargo (Apolinar Moscote), Cristal Aparicio (Remedios Moscote), Loren Sofia Paz (Amaranta Buendia), and Akima (Rebeca), among others.
“It was gratifying to make it,” Viña Machado said about her role as Pilar Ternera, the woman who reads fortunes and introduces Ursula and Jose Arcadio’s sons to sexuality. She describes her character as “a very lively woman… a keen observer of everything that happens in Macondo, a woman whose vibrant body reflects her spirited soul.”
The cast also includes actors from other countries, such as Spanish actor Moreno Borja, who plays the beloved Melquiades; Italian Ruggero Pasquarelli (Pietro Crespi); Peruvian Salvador del Solar (Lieutenant Moncada); and Cuban Jacqueline Arenal (Leonor Moscote).
With costumes “imbued with deep narrative significance,” dazzling sets, and exceptional cinematography, the series was primarily filmed in Alvarado, a town in the Tolima department of central Colombia, as well as in other towns in the region, including La Guajira, Magdalena, Cesar, and Cundinamarca. “I believe it has been made under the best conditions, so we are very optimistic that it will be well-received,” Rodrigo Garcia Barcha hopes.
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
