Legendary Macondo: ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ Becomes Netflix Series

The Magical Realism of “Cien Años de Soledad”: A Journey into Colombian History

One hundred years of solitude is magical realism. It is the plague of insomnia that keeps an entire town awake until they start to forget even who they are. It is Mauricio Babilonia surrounded by yellow butterflies. It is a sack of bones moving without explanation. It is Remedios, “the Beauty,” ascending to the sky. It is the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar following José Arcadio Buendía everywhere. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” is a story full of omens, superstitions, and magic. But it is also the Thousand Days’ War, the deadliest civil conflict in Colombia between 1899 and 1902. It is also the massacre of the banana workers in 1928 when the Army quelled a strike against the United Fruit Company with a brutal slaughter of workers.

The First Audiovisual Adaptation of a Literary Masterpiece

In the dichotomy between a mythical Macondo, “the land that no one had promised them,” and the history of a nation marked by violence, moves the first audiovisual adaptation of one of the greatest Spanish novels in history. It has been almost six years since Netflix announced, in early 2019, the acquisition of the rights to adapt Gabriel García Márquez’s seminal novel. According to Rodrigo García, son of the Nobel laureate, there were only three requests left by the writer to consider a visual version of his work: that it be told “in many hours, in Spanish, and in Colombia.” On December 11, Netflix will premiere the first season of one of the most ambitious audiovisual projects in Latin American history.

To narrate this journey through seven generations of the Buendía family, the series utilizes a total of 16 chapters, divided into two seasons of eight episodes each. The project was a challenge for all involved. In addition to the difficulties of any adaptation, there were high expectations due to the novel’s more than 50 million copies sold worldwide and the desire of an entire society to see itself reflected on screen. Its creators approached it as a tribute to Colombia. As highlighted by Natalia Santa, head of the script team, in a mid-October video call interview: “For us, it was very important to understand the novel first as a great document of Colombian history and also as a portrait of our society, how we are as a nation, a nation that has been crossed by centuries of violence. In ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ there is a very raw portrait of violence in Colombia, of what that implied at a political level but also in everyday life, in families.”

The adaptation project began in the hands of Puerto Rican playwright and screenwriter José Rivera before passing to three Colombian screenwriters: Camila Brugés, Albatros González, and Natalia Santa. Over two and a half years of work, which continued in parallel to the production, they faced challenges such as the vastness of a novel full of characters and events, which required deciding what to include and how to do it. Although the plot jumps in time, Netflix’s condition was that the narration be chronological. It was also decided to include the voice of a narrator to provide unity to a work in which time advances rapidly, with characters played by three or four different actors in different stages of their lives, such as José Arcadio Jr. and Aureliano. In selecting events, they were clear that all those iconic moments for which this story is most remembered must be retained. “They are precious images that remain with readers and that surely as viewers will be expected in the series,” explains screenwriter Camila Brugés.

Inside the Real Story

“The Macondo in the series is a historically accurate Macondo. It is surely not the Macondo that everyone imagines because that depends on each individual’s mind, but it is a Macondo that is within real history, that tells political, architectural history… We thought that was the safest way to approach this mythical town, as a historical Macondo,” argues Bárbara Enríquez, head of production design. The century-long story not only traverses characters and events but also shows how that utopian town created by cousins José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula Iguarán, along with other relatives and friends, grows.

“Macondo is a combination of scenery and a lot of civil engineering,” Enríquez continues via video call. This town, which grew as the series progressed in its filming, was built in Alvarado, near the city of Ibagué, a location whose topography could resemble the Colombian Caribbean, where the novel is set, and which had the logistical conditions to host a production of this magnitude. Over 200 workers worked for almost a year on the construction of the town, from its sewer system and electricity to the sidewalks, in a four-phase evolution until reaching what the production called “Macondo 4,” the final and most complete version of the place. “The idea was to take a tour through the architectural history of Colombia. In Macondo, we have vernacular architecture, made of mud and cane, then colonial architecture, then republican architecture, from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. It is a tribute to the great buildings of the country, and we were very much based on the Caribbean Colombian part,” Enríquez reviews.

Also growing and evolving is the Buendía House, the home of the protagonist family. “If Macondo is the largest being of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ the house is the most important, it is another character, the womb where the conflicts of this family of crazies occur. It is a house that is happy, that gets depressed, that goes to war, that is reborn…” details the production designer. The building, with its facade in the central set town but whose interior was reproduced separately, took 25 weeks to be ready in its initial version. From there, and as in the story, rooms were added, materials changed until it had two floors. This evolution required organizing plans so that after shooting the scenes in the house in one of its phases, the team used filming in other locations to work on the building’s development. “The house is another Buendía,” Enríquez concludes.

Over 34,000 Pieces of Wardrobe

Studying the fashion of the time was not an easy task for the team led by costume designer Catherine Rodríguez. The 34,000 pieces of clothing and footwear worn in the series were created from scratch by a 100% Colombian team. “The wardrobe is like a living animal,” summarizes Rodríguez, but an animal for which it was difficult to find records for an era in which photography was only accessible to the upper classes. Therefore, they relied on illustrations from the Corographic Commission – a scientific project promoted by the government in the mid-19th century to achieve a complete description of New Granada – or books by travelers like the Spanish José María Gutiérrez de Alba. “We did a lot of research that was then translated into patterning, which was then translated into textile research,” Rodríguez describes.

One of the premises of the wardrobe team was that the artisans responsible for making the pieces provided the materials, “that they were artisanal pieces that passed from their hands to us,” says Rodríguez. The Wayúu indigenous community, the largest indigenous population in Colombia, also participated in the making, following their own methods, of the attire for two Wayúu characters in this story, Visitación and Cataure.

Colombian Gaitas and String Orchestra

Macondo sounds like Colombian gaitas, like a string orchestra. Like wind and cicadas. Like military drums. “Macondo is very rich in sound, this country is very rich in sounds. Mixing those worlds was the most complicated,” says composer Camilo Sanabria, in charge of the soundtrack while Juancho Valencia handled the live music in the series. Creating the appropriate atmosphere was key for the universe of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ to be sustained. “I was experimenting with very basic sounds in the genesis, very primal elements, like a drum, the wind… The sound gradually became more sophisticated as time passed.” Like when Pietro Crespi’s pianola arrives in Macondo and European sounds are added to the environment.

“There is very rigorous research, but we also gave ourselves licenses to deconstruct this folkloric music, to shape it. It had to be very flexible because we are telling the creation of a new world,” explains the musician. Instruments like bottles or the marimba help mark the passage of time and also seek a sense of absurd humor prevalent in the story. The sound of war in Macondo is that of a sad war marked with string and percussion instruments. “This is a Macondo full of worlds, of very rare and special sounds, of very different layers.” The composer uses the analogy of alchemy introduced by the gypsy Melquíades in the story. With alchemy, he wants to create gold from other materials. Music is like that, from one material I try to create another, an atmosphere… It is the search for identity.”

And so, with layers of information in the foreground, middle ground, and background, of textures, sounds, images, words, and even with the 16,000 native Caribbean plants brought to the set to make Macondo look and smell like the place described by Gabo, literary magical realism comes to life on the screen. “This is the era in technological and audiovisual advances where the things that García Márquez describes happening in Macondo could be done in the best way,” argues Natalia Santa. “They were extraordinary events but were assumed in an ordinary way. No one is surprised that Remedios, ‘the Beauty,’ ascends, she simply ascends. Melquíades does not age. Mauricio Babilonia is followed by yellow butterflies. These are things that happen and are accepted naturally,” explains the screenwriter.

In the 16 chapters of the series, many things will change compared to the novel, others will remain. All those involved in the production understand that there will be multiple reactions from readers and viewers. But what has not changed, and could not change, is the beginning of the story: “Many years later, facing the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía would remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

Conclusion

The adaptation of “Cien años de soledad” into an audiovisual masterpiece by Netflix is a groundbreaking achievement that brings to life the magical realism and rich history of Colombia as portrayed in Gabriel García Márquez’s iconic novel. With meticulous attention to detail in production design, wardrobe, and musical composition, the series captures the essence of Macondo and the Buendía family in a way that honors the original work while adding new dimensions to the storytelling. As viewers embark on this journey through seven generations of the Buendía lineage, they are invited to experience the beauty, tragedy, and mystique of a world where ordinary events unfold in extraordinary ways.

FAQ

1. When will Netflix release the first season of ‘Cien años de soledad’?

Netflix will premiere the first season of ‘Cien años de soledad’ on December 11, marking one of the most ambitious audiovisual projects in the history of Latin America.

2. How many episodes are included in the adaptation of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’?

The series employs a total of 16 chapters, divided into two seasons of eight episodes each, to narrate the intricate story spanning seven generations of the Buendía family.