SPANISH LANGUAGE DRAMA: “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” / “The Dead Girls.”

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” (Netflix) Season 1 or the. first 8 episodes. Colombian historical drama series based on Gabriel García Márquez's 1967 novel of the same name. Tells the story of seven generations of the Buendía family in the town of Macondo. 

       It'd be hard or impossible to replicate Mr Garcia Marquez's monumental literary epic as a cinematic project. But this series, directed by Alex Garcia Lopez and Laura Mora from a team of scriptwriters, did an exemplary job of visualizing what we imagined as we immersed in Gabriel's entrancing narrative, punctuated by his genius use of magical realism.

       I give special kudos to production designers Barbara Enriquez and Eugenio Caballero. Their craft is so intimately detailed and grandiosely picturesque, adding dramatic urgency to the story's panoramic reach. Indeed, magical!

       And yes the outstanding performance of Marleyda Soto as Úrsula, the Buendia family matriarch. 🎥👍📽

“The Dead Girls” (Netflix) Mexican crime drama, based upon the novel “Las Muertas” (1977) by Jorge Ibargüengoitia, which was inspired by the real life Las Poquianchis.

       Background: María Delfina González Valenzuela, and her sisters María del Carmen, María Luisa, and María de Jesús, known as Las Poquianchis, were from the western Mexican state of Jalisco. From 1950 until 1964, the sisters ran "Rancho El Ángel,” the locus of their large-scale prostitution ring and the site of the murder of at least 91 people, but it is believed that the four sisters killed more than 150 people or even more than 200 people.

       This series focuses on the eldest sister Arcangela Baladro and younger sibling Serafina, played with equal evil sincerity and sinister obliviousness by Arcelia Ramirez and Paulina Gaitan. 

       Special mention to Mauricio Isaac who portrayed Skeleton, the caretaker of the sisters’ brothel. Who would notice that the important character, a woman, is played by a man? I didn't until I googled more info about the series.

       I haven't really read much about the real events or details of how the Valenzuela/Baladro siblings’ crimes were carried out. I must say this series sort of "humanized" the two sisters (another sister played a lesser role); the “killings” were accidental? 

       Overall though, the series is not so bad. The 1950-1960s production design and its complementary grayish or chromatic photography fit the era, accentuating the drama. The impressionistic take of the hearings reminded me of street theater in the 1990s. 🎥💻📽