repressed memories

His surrealist narratives, particularly in Mulholland Drive and Eraserhead, blur reality and trauma to explore how the psyche buries and distorts painful memories.

His fragmented, non-linear storytelling in Irréversible and Enter the Void deliberately reconstructs trauma through scrambled timelines that mirror how repressed memories surface unpredictably.

His films Hereditary and Midsommar layer family secrets and childhood trauma beneath folk-horror aesthetics, revealing how repressed grief and abuse manifest in psychological breakdown.