So this week after the immense success of the story of another comedian's vicious upbringing, in Joker, then comes a new filming of Jonas Gardell's almost as tangled upbringing in Enebyberg outside Stockholm.

Here, however, the suburb has been named Sävbyholm, and the main character is named Juha - a boy whose existence is largely about trying to become one in the cool gang at school but who constantly ends up wrong. It is only in his spare time that he dares to spend time with the class's stamped students Tomas and Jenny. We meet blind adults, teachers who abdicate, a school class that takes no prisoners, and a protagonist whose insatiable thirst for attention causes him to betray his friends. Which creates wounds that have not healed with the middle-aged Juha, who here looks back on the misery.

The novel came the same year as the television series (1992), and brought back vicious memories from the 1970s when bullying was the hottest of all children's and teenage hobbies. Has it gotten better now? They say it. The teachers are better off, you can hope. But what do you know when you, as an adult, stand outside the peculiar hierarchy of power that held / held the children in an iron grip? What, in adult eyes, is a little crap kid who has not got hair on his scrotum, is in the children's world a ruler with unlimited power.

It is difficult, as outsiders, to jerk on that world order.

It sounds like an artistic self-harming behavior to try to squeeze the whole novel down in 90 minutes, but it actually works just fine. Growing up a comedian evokes strong emotions, did it 27 years ago, does it even more now. Calling forward the time, it makes it dry up like a blackened revenge angel. Exposing the pulsed essence of intrigue: the bullying, its psychology and victims.

Juha's struggle for affirmation is as strong in adulthood, has been his driving force since the school's all-fun hour, but also his biggest blemish. Impossible to recover from, a permanent part of his personality.

The scene where the protagonist is visited in the lodge by one of the bullies (Jakob Eklund), who has not realized anything of what he and his policemen have done, is as horrible as it is true. It is fascinating and disgusting how easy it is to fall into old patterns when old school "friends" show up. That comment: "Ah, we just laughed a little". Horrible. And you get mad at Juha today for not giving the bully a blow on the mouth, verbal or physical.
Okay, it came to an end, with this story.

Although it took some energy initially to think of Johan Rheborg's Fredde Schiller persona (I had just started watching the last season of Solsidan when this movie was shown), Rheborg's dimmed game makes sure he soon completely steps up in it tormented Juha. It is a character that is almost entirely built by then, we get very little contemporary but it is a limitation that feels perfectly adequate, and makes the film concise. It is a good limitation, not a dramaturgical shortcoming.

But of course it is not just the memories that make A Comedian's upbringing hit right, it does as much script and the sometimes slightly elevated tone that Sekersöz manages well. The German mother, Ulla Skoog's pedophile gymnastics teacher, the alcoholic Miss - which gives a kind of comic relief in the middle of seriousness. Without it scoring.

The birthday party at the home of the ejected Tomas, where all the kids dissect everything, tear up unbearably in body and soul.
A key replica falls towards the end, it says roughly: "This may not be exactly how it went, but that's how I remember it."

Reality through a laughter mirror, the rays of sadness seen through a sooty glass.

Yes, by the way, that narrator's voice ... it is, as in principle, all other narrator voices, needless to say. Things are said that we have already taken, or worse: point out what is simultaneously shown in the picture. Well, in some contexts it may be necessary but otherwise ... Well, we should announce a voice-over-free year, just to test if we can do without that grind.

Beyond that: A movie that tears the heart. That makes one think of their own schooling, and the children's ditto. It is certainly not a game to go to school.