31/01/2025 - Maria Eriksson-Hecht crafts a vibrant and intimate feature debut revolving around a tried-and-tested theme

Kevlar is a synthetic fibre, about five times stronger than steel, and used in tyres, sails, drumheads and, not least, bulletproof vests. It’s also name-checked by the beloved Swedish pop group Kent in “Kevlar Soul”, a song both heard in and lending its title to Maria Eriksson-Hecht’s debut feature, Kevlar Soul [+see also:
interview: Maria Eriksson-Hecht
film profile], world-premiering in the Nordic Competition at the 48th Göteborg Film Festival.

The soul in question belongs to Alex (Josef Kersh) and also, to some extent, to Robin (Rio Svensson), two teenage brothers living in an industrial-town council-estate area with their depressed, widowed, alcoholic and abusive father (Torkel Petersson, the only established professional actor here). Big bro Alex, the strong one by necessity, rather than choice, works 24/7 to keep dad at bay, looking after Robin and being the only adult in the room. Seeing him prepare a miserable meal consisting of three-minute macaroni and Swedish falukorv baloney encapsulates the dreary social-realism setting to a tee. “Ahh, Swedish and Italian cuisine combined,” dad exclaims feebly, utterly failing to lighten the mood.

Instead, this happens when a third teenager appears, the perky, upper-middle-class Ines (Adja Sise Stenson), who turns the tables quite a bit. Robin is immediately smitten, but Ines’s interests are directed towards Alex (they bond over the Kent song), who gets to be a proper teenager for once. Robin, meanwhile, scorned and resentful, estranges himself from Alex and teams up with Dennis (Jonay Pineda Skallak from JJ+E), a local hoodlum and general rotten egg with a penchant for fighting dogs. Events get both horrible and tragic when Dennis and Robin are barred from a party attended by Alex and Ines and their friends, and decide to take revenge, with a fatal outcome. Is there a road to redemption out of this? That’s the big, looming question. Another big question: hasn’t this theme already been told, tried and tested to the nth degree and beyond?

While this will be unavoidably true, there’s also something to be said about the execution, which is where Kevlar Soul delivers, with flying colours at that. We get a young cast of fresh faces, emanating and sharing tangible chemistry in bringing their parts to vibrant life. We get intimate cinematography from Josua Enblom (2024’s Guldbagge winner in his category for Shame on Dry Land [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Axel Petersén
film profile]), who goes for a warm, rather than gritty, kind of lensing, which is surprising, given the genre. Similar attributes could describe composer Pessi Levanto’s lyrical score, which includes a specially written psalm. Pelle Rådström’s intricate script fully justifies his Nordic Series Script Award for Pressure Point, presented to him at Göteborg earlier during this year’s edition (see the news).

As for director Maria Eriksson-Hecht, sporting a sizeable track record with well-received shorts and directorial contributions within series like Thin Blue Line [+see also:
interview: Gizem Erdogan
series profile] and Thunder in My Heart as well as a master’s thesis named “How to Direct Children”, she should be one to keep a close eye on. With names like hers, Fanny Ovesen’s and Mika Gustafson’s, it can be safely wagered that Sweden’s growth in female directorial talent is budding these days, to say the least.

Kevlar Soul was produced by Zentropa Sweden, with co-production by Storm Films (Norway) and Bufo (Finland).