“Cien Años de Soledad” is an epic story that follows the lives of Úrsula Iguarán and José Buendía, from the foundation of the village of Macondo, until their latest years. The first part of the show has a lot of narrative plots, as there are several characters. The adaptation managed to deepen the storylines of all the main protagonists, giving some insights into their personality.
Stunning photography, pure visual poetry
The editing highlighted the temporal progressions pretty well, with smooth camera movements, change of lights and illumination that created such a beautiful visual narration. This largely contributed to make the plot exposure clear and straightforward, despite the numerous events happening along the way.
However, I feel that this came at a cost: certain passages were over-simplified: the origin of some characters were rushed, generating at times a sense of incompleteness. I believe that the series needed to dedicate a bit more time on developing certain chapters, maybe by making a couple of additional episodes.
I consider “Cien Años de Soledad” a work of visual poetry with excellent photography. Certain images seem paintings that immersed me in a mystical atmosphere. The series deals with serious topics: there are several explicit and violent images that will also tell the years of the Colombian Revolution between the Liberal and Conservative parties.
I liked how Netflix structured the episodes, that are self-contained, without any cliffhanger, letting the story really sink in, rather than creating the sense of urgency to watch the next chapter. The finale of the first season is spectacular and creates a great anticipation for the second part.