‘The Hypnosis’ Director Ernst De Geer on Crafting a Satire About Second-Hand Embarrassment

The Swedish Film Institute’s Wild Card funding initiative has been developing new talent since 2018. Designed to provide support for recent film school graduates, it helps them make a low-budget debut feature. Stockholm-born helmer Ernst De Geer was among the first cohort to benefit from this scheme and now his satire “The Hypnosis” will world premiere in Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s Crystal Globe competition. Totem Films is managing world sales.

“The Hypnosis” follows young couple André (Herbert Nordrum, “The Worst Person in the World”) and Vera (Asta Kamma August, “The Pact”), partners in business as well as life, as they pitch their mobile app about women’s reproductive health at a prestigious seminar designed to attract investors. Unfortunately, Vera’s prior visit to a hypnotist to help her quit smoking results in some unexpected consequences… such as losing her normal inhibitions during their crucial pitch weekend.

Curiously, dogs, both real and imaginary, pop up in various places in the story. De Geer says: “We kind of liked that the dog could represent multiple different things. There’s both the unrestrained behavior and the obedient dog in there.”

De Geer jokes that one of the first sparks of inspiration for the film came from seeing an old Donald Duck cartoon where the character orders a hypnotist kit and starts hypnotizing his dog. More seriously, he says: “I think from the beginning I was most interested in what would happen if someone close to me suddenly started to act different. I wanted to explore the feeling of second-hand embarrassment in a close relationship, and how suffocating that can be for the other person (and, it turns out, also for the person feeling the embarrassment).” As De Geer shows in the film, it’s a very human feeling, but also a destructive one.

The film’s IT pitch sessions may make some think about films in development pitches at festivals, and how the pitching game is both educational and excruciating for the filmmakers. De Geer admits that such pitches were also part of the film’s inspiration. He says: “Me and Mads Stegger, my co-writer, attended a pitching competition like that with a different film, and it was definitely excruciating because we just weren’t very good in that situation.”

Most of the film’s action takes place in the tight confines of a hotel, hotel bedroom and conference center, and those locations put some unexpectedly useful constraints on the project. De Geer says: “Since the film is pretty low budget, it helped with keeping things uniform. Both me and cinematographer Jonathan Bjerstedt lived in the same hotel that we shot the film in both before and during the shoot, so we had a lot of time figuring out how we wanted to get the most out of the location.”

De Geer confides that the biggest challenge in making “The Hypnosis” was the limited time frame that comes with a low budget project, but says: “I actually think the shoot was a very enjoyable experience. In fact, I was sometimes worried that things were going too smoothly, since there’s this stupid idea that a smooth shoot doesn’t result in a good movie. But when the shoot is this short, things really have to go smoothly, or you’re not going to get it at all!”

Perhaps De Geer’s main takeaway from making his first feature was his desire to shoot his next film in chronological order, “because I just think that fits my directing style.” He notes: “Of course, that’s always difficult to do, and a budget question, but I did feel like it’s even more relevant when shooting a feature rather than a short, since the emotional arcs are longer.”

Performers Nordrum and August were cast two years before the shooting ultimately took place. De Geer believes that allowed extra time for their characters to settle, but says: “We did do some improvisation, both in rehearsals and on set. I always like to try some limited improvisation on set to find out what a scene has to offer.”

A graduate of the Norwegian Film School, De Geer describes it as a place with a lot of focus on craft and on learning the basics of storytelling. He says: “I think that was what appealed most to me, a kind of practical approach. I think studying filmmaking is always going to be frustrating since it’s such a mix between craftsmanship and intuitive artistry, and it’s very difficult to learn both of these things at once.”

Now, with his Wild Card feature under his belt, what is next for De Geer? He says: “Me and Mads are developing a new feature with Garagefilm and our producer Mimmi Spång, but it’s kind of too early in development to say much more!”