Desalma

A series of terror that delivers a beautiful photograph and a great sound. Having the brilliant Cássia Kiss in the cast only shows jenuidity and originality in a genre of series so little explored in the country. Of course, with its defects as unnecessary and poorly made jumpsscares. The series is able to hold and create tension even with these problems.

Slow paced, terrible acting, unconvincing dialogues, with implausible wording and cringy delivery. The only truly horrifying scenes are the ones in the pig slaughterhouse. That is, indeed, true and absolutely gratuitous horror for anyone with a dash of sensitivity regarding animal cruelty. For all these reasons, I couldn't get past the first 10 minutes.

"Desalma", the new series from Globoplay, has its flaws (there's no such a thing as a "perfect" series), but it's not the horrible thing some people here are trying to depict. It's a damn good series for brazilians who are looking for good quality national production with an outstanding cinematography and a consistent plot. It is also very good for foreigners who want to learn Portuguese, because the lines are delivered in an unhurried way.

Some people are comparing Desalma with Dark, the German hit series. Well, there are some similarities between both, but it mostly has to do with tropes and cliches of their genre. It does not mean Desalma is copying Dark (something that some people are accusing). I believe the main similarities are: both are mysteries (but Dark have a science fiction tendency and Desalma has a fantasy tendency); both are set in a small town (but that is a very common trait in mystery stories since Twin Peaks); both start with a suicide (which is a common topic in mystery stories). They also share a resemblance in its atmosphere and tone, but I believe it is because they hired Alexander Würtz, the sound editor of Dark, to work as a consultant.

"Desalma" is a mystery, but it revolves around fantasy, magic, folklore and witchcraft (unlike Dark, which revolves around time travel and science fiction), mostly about myths and legends that the Ukrainian immigrants who founded Brigida (the city where the story is set) brought from their native land.

The main flaw of this series is the acting. Most secondary actors gave a poor performance, only delivering the lines without really getting into their characters. But most of the main actors and actresses had a great performance, specially Cassia Kis (the witch Haia), Maria Ribeiro (Giovana Skavronski) and another character that would be a spoiler if I talk about...

The first episodes are kind of slow, but if you can get over them, the story becomes very gripping, with a quite good cliffhanger in the last episode. I'm already waiting for Season 2.

P.S.: Sorry for eventual bad English and for the excess of parentheses, but I can't keep from doing it when writing reviews.

Globo still don't know how to do a non soup-opera show. A lot of cliches, they talk a lot about traditions, curses, but nothing really happens. I gave up after episode 4.

Great production with great screenplay! Good acting. Brazil showing we can make good TV such as Hollywood.