It's funny how a phenomenon transitions from being seen as a groundbreaking form of treatment to eventually end up being regarded as unscientific mumbo jumbo. The believers studied for years and read books by old dead men who had no clue what they were doing. Afterwards, the believers spent their days in a chair listening to patients ruminate on their inner selves. Some may have left the sessions with increased self-awareness, but many emerged even more confused than they were initially. They would have achieved more lasting positive results if patients were served coconut balls instead.

However, there is one field where psychoanalysis has made a lasting mark - filmmaking. I'm not referring to all those depictions of neurotic characters endlessly lying on a couch at their therapists. No, it's rather the idea of repressed memories that has been utterly irresistible to screenwriters. I don't know how many movies and series I've seen revolving around childhood trauma. Preferably abuse or traumatic experiences in relationships or in a war that the main character doesn't remember and hinders him from living his life to the fullest. In reality, there is nothing we humans remember better than horrific events in our lives. They are the ones that stick despite our desire to get rid of them. Unfortunately, it's not as spectacular to make a film about what we truly have forgotten.

-What’s the movie about, Anders?

-A man who has repressed what kind of shorts he was wearing on a vacation in Egypt.

We remember what matters. We remember what deviates from everyday life. That's why memory researchers encourage us to associate facts with obscenities, so we trick the brain into sticking a permanent Post-it note there. Albert Einstein = pubic hair.

But in the world of film, there is nothing more attractive than a protagonist carrying an unconscious trauma. Cut to flashback: A man hits a little boy on the head with a saucepan. Cut back to the adult protagonist: Rubbing his eyes and looking bewildered. It's only through a breakthrough with his psychoanalyst (who is also his love interest) that the lead character becomes aware of what he has been through. Cut to reconciliation scene. Tears. Embrace. Strings. Plinky piano. End credits. The end.

An unforgettable film.