The series Unsoul, a Globoplay original production – Globo’s OTT platform – shows the potential of the company to produce works in several genres, dynamic scripts, involving narratives and themes aligned to a connected consumer. A new product in the international catalog this year, the production written by Ana Paula Maia successfully premiered this month on Globoplay – available in Brazil and in the United States.
According to Carlos Manga Jr. (of Aruanas and If I Close My Eyes Now, nominated to the International Emmy Awards 2019), responsible for the artistic direction of the production, the idea was to create an atmosphere of suspense, apprehension and even a certain discomfort. “It is a series
that works with the subconscious. Our focus was to create an atmosphere and generate a suspense state. The supernatural elements exist because they are part of the mystical atmosphere, which is full of metaphysics. The audience knows what happens but does not see it; just feels it. These elements refer to supernatural as they refer to density. If I could use three words to define the atmosphere in Unsoul, they would be density, oddness and rigor.”
In order to increase the suspense even more, the series also had the consultancy by German sound designer Alexander Wurz, expert in supernatural thriller productions, who has in his CV works such as The Dark Valley, Cold Hell and the series Dark.
The story of Unsoul takes place in Brígida, a small town of Ukrainian colonization in the countryside of southern Brazil. The traditional party of Ivana Kupala is banished from the festive calendar of the place. Thirty years later, the people are preparing to bring the party back, but enigmatic events start to scare the community. Three women are marked by transformations and losses, some of them irreparable. On the eve of the darkest night of the year, when the dark souls are able to walk on the realm of the living, the forest seems to attract the naive ones to its cold interior, of high trees, where supernatural events haunt the members of the families involved in the tragedy of the past.
Interview with Carlos Manga Jr.
Which elements reflect the supernatural genre?
The biggest challenge of working in a genre is to make the right choices in terms of codes. The first thing to say about Unsoul is the costume design, which has two different moments: one when it almost doesn’t show up, but incites interest; and when it shows up and deals with folklore issues. From the start, we looked for a neutral color palette, as the hues are all toned down. Going towards the suggested direction, the costume is all connected. In the case of Haia (character played by actress Cássia Kis), for example, we need the audience to believe that she embroidered hew own cape, that she uses that coat for several years or that everything was passed from mother to daughter. Everything in Unsoul needs a smell, you believe that that is real. In cinematography, we stay away from clichés. We recorded many daytime scenes in the extreme south of Brazil, where we found these woods surrounded by trees. The feeling is that the forest is endless. These are huge trees and practically in geometrical columns, where the sunlight cannot go through. It is like a chess board: when you are in the middle of these woods, you look around and there are trees and more trees. The light does not reach people. It is very interesting because you don’t know daytime, but the atmosphere is dense, as the sun cannot go through this barrier.
How do you define the three main characters of the story – Haia, Ignes and Giovana?
Cássia Kis’s character (Haia) is central as she is the pivot of the entire story. Giovana, Maria Ribeiro’s character, is an urban and cosmopolitan woman, who arrives from São Paulo (Brazil) after losing her husband, who was from Brígida and the son of Ukrainians. She arrives with her daughters to live in a house that is from his family and, from then on, gets involved in this fog that is part of the atmosphere in Brígida. Ignes loses her brother and doesn’t accept it. We see that the loss runs through the characters, it is part of the link among them. Now, Ignes has a son who is impacted by the supernatural effects of everything that Haia builds for not having accepted her daughter’s death. All the characters are very interesting, they are varied and have multiple layers. There is a lot of complexity. As they are Ukrainian, they possess an aching hardiness. You can’t see a single tear, but you feel that person’s pain.
The story takes place in two decades, in a narrative that comes and goes. Which aesthetic and language differences did you choose for each of the phases?
There are various ways to approach parallel times and different periods. We chose to work in cinematography in ways that the audience can know in a glimpse. The color trend changes between the time periods. The 1980s are more yellowish, somewhat younger, as during this time the young people were happier, livelier. They had more color, way before the tragedies started to happen. The current cinematography has a dark and dense day.
What were the advantages to record in Serra Gaúcha (Gaucho Highlands), in the countryside of southern Brazil?
Ana Paula Maia went to Prudentópolis to get to know the Ukrainian tradition in Brazil. But, once the fictional story was created, we got to the conclusion that in cities such as Antônio Prado, we found an architecture that had a lot to do with Ukrainian buildings. In Rio Grande do Sul, a state in the south of Brazil, we had very peculiar cities and also the woods, which, in the story, has elements such as waterfalls, lakes and the forest.
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