A literary masterpiece comes to life in first One Hundred Years Of Solitude trailer

The world “unadaptable” is thrown around a lot in film and literary criticism. (Think Ulysses or Stephen King’s It, depending on your mileage with those two films.) For decades, Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s Nobel Prize winning novel One Hundred Years Of Solitude has fallen squarely into that category. Despite inspiring its share of subsequent works (Disney’s Encanto, to name one), no one had tried their hand at the masterpiece of magical realism itself—until now. 

Netflix’s 16-episode adaptation was shot entirely on location in Márquez’s native Colombia with the backing of his family. The first full-length trailer brings many of the novel’s immortal moments to life—including the founding of the story’s central city, Macondo, the birth of Colonel Aureliano Buendía (with his eyes wide open), the city’s violent revolution, and more.

The massive and multi-generational epic is hard to sum up in just a few words, but here’s Netflix’s attempt:

The story follows cousins José and Úrsula, who get married against their parents’ wishes and leave their village to embark on a long journey in search of a new home. Accompanied by friends and adventurers, their voyage culminates with the founding of a utopian town on the banks of a river of prehistoric stones that they baptize Macondo. Several generations of the Buendía lineage will shape the future of this mythical town, tormented by madness, impossible loves, a bloody and absurd war, and a terrible curse that condemns them, without hope, to 100 years of solitude.

One Hundred Years Of Solitude is a revered story that its creators clearly felt an enormous amount of responsibility about taking on. “Macondo and its host of characters, who I truly feel as my own blood, are universal, but at the same time so unique; so from Colombia, so beautifully tragic that it is impossible not to be trapped in this world,” said Claudio Cataño, who plays Colonel Aureliano, in a statement. The “predominantly Colombian” cast also includes Marco Antonio González, Diego Vásquez, Susana Morales, Marleyda Soto, Moreno Borja, Viña Machado, and many more.

The first eight episodes of the series premiere December 11.