‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ series review: There is magic and realism in spades in this iteration of Macondo 

Series adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude explores Márquez's iconic novel with stunning visuals and powerful performances.

There naturally are differences between the series adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’and the text. Apart from the series opening at the end of the novel, with the whirlwind, the carnivorous ants, and the bloodied, pregnant woman, there is Melquíades (Moreno Borja) drawing the ouroboros (a serpent eating its tail) that does not appear in the novel.

The ouroboros stands for eternity and the cyclical nature of things. Makers could have used them as a shorthand for the triumphs and tragedies of the ill-fated Buendía family. That most of the tragedies are brought on by the Buendía themselves is a cross they have to bear.

Márquez refused to sell the rights to his novel as he believed a film would not be able to do justice to its breadth. The novel incidentally uses only 422 pages to tell a story that changed world literature forever, as opposed to say, the 1,024 pages Robert Galbraith/J. K. Rowling uses to tell a non-story in ‘The Ink Black Heart’!

This series adaptation has been created with the blessings of the Márquez family, per their wishes to have it filmed in Colombia and Spanish. After beginning with the end of the novel in silence, the famous opening lines of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ring out, “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

We go to the beginning, to the marriage of cousins, José Arcadio Buendía (Marco Antonio González Ospina) and Úrsula Iguarán (Susana Morales Cañas). Thanks to her mother’s disapproval and stories of their children being born with the tail of a pig, the marriage is not consummated till the death at a duel with Prudencio Aguilar (Helber Sepúlveda Escobar).

Buendía and Úrsula with their friends leave their village to find a place where they can live as they want. They find a utopia after much wandering through swamps and jungle and Buendía calls the place Macondo after a dream. For a time Macondo is isolated from world events with the annual visit of the gypsies including Melquíades being their only contact with the outside world.

As Macondo prospers, the world comes calling, in the form of a magistrate, Apolinar Moscote (Jairo Camargo) and his seven daughters and later, election, soldiers, death and the revolution. Buendía and Úrsula have three children (none born with the tail of a pig), Arcadio (Janer Villarreal), Aureliano (Claudio Cataño), who was born with his eyes open and goes to lead the revolution and a daughter, Amaranta (Loren Sofía).