Can a series get bigger than this?

Besides directly dabbling in film productions the great writer Gabriel Garciacutea Marquez 19272014 was also once a prominent film criticItrsquos odd then that while alive he was clear about one thing That no filmmaker must lay their hands on his greatest book One Hundred Years of Solitude OHYSWhyrsquos that you think I ask Colombian screenwriters Camila Bruges and Natalia Santa Natalia says ldquoWell you canrsquot make a 10hour movie And itrsquos impossible to fit all that happens in the book into a film any shorterrdquoWho are Camila and Natalia Quite easily writers with the toughest job in Colombia if not Latin America or even the world perhaps given the ldquoglobal gazerdquo on themTheyrsquove gone ahead and adapted Marquezrsquos OHYS for a 16hour Netflix series The first season of which dropped on December 11 And itrsquos a stellar piece of work on its own no doubt equally faithful to Marquezrsquos OG magnum opusNatalia reasons ldquoIf Gabo Marquez had lived to the moment we are right nowmdashwith technical advancements plus streaming platformsmdashhis opinion on filming OHYS wouldrsquove been differentrdquoScreenwriters Natalia Santa and Camila BrugesTo begin with she says all that Marquezrsquos family demanded from Netflix before parting with book rightsmdashwhich would have also been the authorrsquos concernsmdashwere impossible to meet even until 2014The conditions being ldquoOHYS has to be in Spanish shot in Colombia primarily with a local crew and production values of the highestglobal levelrdquo Now movies have budgets Execution is the filmmakersrsquo headacheUnlike the spirited imagination of a fiction writer let alone Marquez who practically captured the history of his continent through charactersmdashstarting with Jose Arcadio Buendiacutea founder of the mythical state of Macondomdashthat were both believable and not straddling between fantasy and memoir or magic and realism as it wereWhile adapting Camila and Natalia tell me they faced the opposite of a problem For the scale of Colombian television theyrsquore inherently attuned to cutting costs when placing situations on scriptldquoOver here we were told to think huger huger think bigrdquo Camila smiles about her unlearning processIncidentally Camilarsquos father was from exactly the same north Colombian region as Marquez She says ldquoMy grandfather like Gabo was a journalist He died early He was also a photographer When you see those images yoursquore struck by how they look straight out of OHYSrdquoAnother aspect that Camilarsquos grandfather passed on as family heirloom was magic realismmdashldquostories reflecting their strong indigenousnative traditions dealing with ideas of life after death mythical tales diving into the ColombianCaribbean culture of the paranormal and fantastical that Marquez did in his books OHYS is still anthropological archaeological looking at our culture history with such sharp gazerdquoMagic realism is embedded in folk tales of these parts Which I guess explains why itrsquos so common as a genrestyle in Latin American literature They get it from grandparents Marquez selfadmittedly did from his grandmomPrecisely what is magic realism and how is it separate from pure fantasy say the likes of The Lord of the RingsMy rudimentary sense is that with pure fantasy or even scifi realism is employed merely as excuse for you to connect with storycharacters and escape into an altogether another worldMagic realism kinda does the opposite The mythical parts show up into whatrsquos seemingly so lifelikemdashjust to let you know that it isnrsquot simply life as we know it You join the dotsmetaphors still The intention isnrsquot pure escapeTherersquos also of course surrealism thatrsquos just totally trippy visuals which arthouse cinema has a strong tradition of Buntildeuel Dali etcFor reasons above magic realism could get tricky in a mainstream movie Coming across as selfindulgent being the perennial concern on screenSalman Rushdiersquos Midnightrsquos Children for instancemdasha book that Irsquom convinced would not have emerged if Marquez didnrsquotmdashmade for a crappy movieThis could also be because it didnrsquot have the breathing space of a series Yann Martelrsquos Life of Pi on the other hand is a masterpiece as an Ang Lee filmFrankly I havenrsquot watched anything like OHYS as a seriesmdashthat feels so much like stepping into a pulsating novel and slipping out of it when you pausesleep and go right back in once you rewind a bit and restartWhat Camila and Natalia have cracked with their screenplay is sticking so suitably to Marquezrsquos words and worldAlso oh yes Admit it You have not read OHYS But assume the other person has and who hasnrsquot either Everybody knows this title from the worldrsquos bestknown Colombian after Pablo Escobar NarcosLet this be our lirsquol secret then Watch the series and pretend itrsquos also your favourite book Now lemme get back to the show as you might even if to feel joyously informed firstMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper