Netflix presented guests in Brussels with the first chapter of the series, which will be divided into two parts of eight episodes each, and the first half of which will be available on December 11th
Argentine filmmaker Alex García López, one of the directors of the Netflix series, said that, upon accepting the project, he questioned himself about the enormous challenge he faced, due to the difficulties the book presents. “When I was offered it, I said ‘yes’ immediately. But when I hung up the phone, I thought ‘Wait a moment, what have I gotten myself into? Am I going to destroy the most beloved book on our continent?’”, recalled the filmmaker.
A presented to guests in Brussels the first chapter of the long-awaited series, which will be divided into two parts of eight episodes each, and the first half of which will be available on December 11th. “I saw that I had to follow my instinct. We always have the book, but for better or worse, this will always be my interpretation, my vision of it”, García López told AFP, after presenting the ambitious series.
The first chapter of the series begins with the wedding of José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula Iguarán, covers the founding of the mythical Macondo and ends with the birth of the couple’s second son, Aureliano, who would later become the legendary Colonel Aureliano Buendía. The Colombian’s book published in 1967, is one of the greatest works of Spanish-language literature, and its film version was seen as a monumental challenge.
Netflix acquired the rights to the novel in 2019, and it was during the pandemic that the platform contacted García López about the challenge of bringing Macondo’s epic to the screen. Once the overall tone of the series was captured, said García López, the challenge was to present surrealistic images on screen, such as Prudencio Aguilar’s recurring ghost, or Remedios the Beautiful’s ascension to heaven.
pragmatic cinema
“I’ve always liked pragmatic cinema, where you see and feel, but clearly special effects help. We wanted to have something like a voice from films from the 60s or 70s, but the effects helped us a little,” said García López. In the case of Aguilar’s ghost, he preferred to show him simply “with a face of sadness and melancholy, because he misses his friends and life”, he pointed out.
The filmmaker highlighted the female characters in the story. “All women are strong in the sense that they all have an incredibly powerful role. I think it was one of García Márquez’s geniuses.” However, he commented that several characters end up having tragic fates. “One day García Márquez was asked why many of his characters end in tragedy, and he replied ‘because they don’t know how to love’”, he recalled.
The production spared no effort for the series about “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, and although Netflix keeps the amounts involved secret, the initiative is the platform’s most ambitious for Latin America. “The book is like a locomotive, it is unstoppable, and at certain moments it is even funny. Sometimes it is a Greek tragedy, and other times it is a biblical tragedy, with many absurdities”, reported the filmmaker.
All clothing and objects that appear in the series were produced and manufactured by Colombian artisans, the platform reported. Netflix sources indicated that the second part of the eight episodes will only be available next year.
*With information from AFP
Posted by Carolina Ferreira
