Binge-worthy: Adaptation of One Hundred Years Of Solitude honours Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s magic

One Hundred Years Of Solitude (M18)

Netflix
★★★☆☆

This first eight-episode season landed on Netflix in mid-December 2024, with a puzzling lack of marketing. That is a shame because the series deserves more attention, and not only because it is an adaptation of one of the most significant works of world literature, the 1967 novel of the same name by Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 

Critics have praised the made-in-Colombia production for its fidelity to Marquez’s text. It is a sprawling story, one that covers the century of the title and spans seven generations of the book’s central characters, the Buendia family. A second season is expected in 2026.

The show opens in the early 1800s in Colombia and follows Jose Arcadio Buendia (played by Marco Antonio Gonzalez Ospina as a young man and later by Diego Vasquez), a hot-headed but charismatic young man in love with his first cousin, the beautiful but superstitious Ursula Iguaran (Susana Morales Canas as a young woman and later by Marleyda Soto).

Ursula subscribes to the folk belief that should they marry, their child will bear the features of an animal. They get married anyway and the original sin of incest will be carried through their lineage, manifesting itself in strange and terrible ways. 

After Jose kills a man to preserve his honour, the victim’s ghost begins to plague his household. To escape the haunting, the couple and a group of followers head to the coast to find a new land. They end up in a swamp, where visions tell Jose that he must settle.

There, he creates a rural utopia, free of caste, landlords, taxes, religious doctrine and other stifling rules found in “civilised” society. He names it Macondo. For 100 years, the Buendias and their descendants will live as they cope with the encroachment of the world the founders had escaped. 

Here are three reasons to tune in.

1. Magical realism on screen

The phrase “magical realism” is the first thing that comes to mind when discussing the work of Latin American writers such as Marquez. The series gives magic its proper place in the story: It is there always and when it manifests itself, characters accept it as part of the natural world and might not show surprise. 

When Jose has visions telling him to create a city in a swamp, it is no big deal for everyone to do as the visions say.

For years after Macondo’s founding, no resident has died, not even by natural causes. The strange orphan Rebeca (Nicole Montenegro Sanchez as a young woman and later by Akima) starts an insomnia plague, a disease that causes residents to stop sleeping as well as forget the names of loved ones and the objects they use every day.

The people of Macondo are saved by the gypsy wizard Melquiades (Moreno Borja), who arrives with a cure just before the disease reaches its terminal stage.

Magic in this world is taken for granted, but – such is the absurd and often bleak sense of humour found in the story – it is rarely harnessed for anything useful. 

2. Strong production design

Macondo looks idyllic but lived-in – as time goes on, more buildings come up in the city, each one looking as if it has stood there for some time. 

While the story can often feel like a soap opera – forbidden passions and family feuds are rife – the quality of the wardrobe, sets, lighting and photography is properly cinematic. 

There are no weak links among the actors either. Vasquez is striking as the character filled with oversized dreams. He plays the older patriarch as a King Lear, a man who is a wilful child one moment and a terrifying head of the family the next. 

3. Fearless storytelling

The producers have stayed true to the world imagined by Marquez. The characters are of their time period – no one feels modernised to be more palatable or relatable to a contemporary audience, a fate that often befalls adaptations of classic books. 

Viewers will see the novel’s take on incest, sex work and sexual abuse.

A member of the Buendia family who looks to be in his 20s is awestruck by the beauty of a pre-teen girl and arrangements are made to have her married to him as soon as she reaches menarche.

Their romance is taken for what it is, rather than being framed as a case of grooming or paedophilia.

The show offers no judgment, other than to say that this was how such affairs used to be handled between decent families.