THE INTERPRETIVE KEY:

Let us begin with the premise that Breaking the Waves is a love story about desire: Bess’s desire for Jan, but also the desire for something that drives the protagonist beyond desire itself, against the waves of fate, toward the ultimate sacrifice. This “something” is jouissance, as defined by Jacques Lacan.

For Lacan, desire is a fundamental concept tied to lack: it is the desire for what is missing in the individual, a desire that can never be fully satisfied — the desire for the One, for the mother.

“The desire for the mother, and conversely the mother’s desire for the child, can never be satisfied because this would mean the abolition of the entire universe of demand. If the two — mother and child — were sufficient unto themselves, nothing would be lacking; therefore there would be nothing to ask, nothing to know, nothing to seek, nothing to learn, and nothing to invent. There would be no civilization.”

This is, as we see, a culturally imposed prohibition of incest, not dictated by biological necessities or mechanisms such as genetic drift.

Desire, so defined, leads — according to Lacan — to the search for the objet petit a, a symbolic object or missing part of oneself, something the individual seeks but can never fully possess. It is therefore an endless search, because lack is a structural condition of human existence. This is the point addressed in Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis (1959–1960).

Desire leads to jouissance, a more complex and ambivalent concept. It is often understood as a form of pleasure that goes beyond the mere satisfaction of a need: it is linked to a “transgression” of limits, a drive toward what lies beyond pleasure, even at the risk of compromising one’s psychological or physical balance. Why? Because jouissance occurs in the body — which is made to enjoy — but only through the mediation of language. With irony, Lacan remarks:

“…we will never know what the oyster or the beaver enjoy, because they do not speak.”

Here we are in 1969–1970, Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis.

In Seminar XX: Encore (1972–1973), a crucial turning point is reached — and this is where Bess comes into play. Lacan returns again to the question of desire and jouissance, stating that woman, unlike man — who is symbolically represented in his entirety by the phallus — has no single symbol in language that represents her fully.

Thus, woman is inscribed partly within language and partly outside it. This means that feminine jouissance cannot be entirely “spoken,” and that a woman can appear either as an extremely familiar being or as a stranger, even alien. “It is thanks to the love of a man that a woman can reconcile herself with her alien dimension,” writes Fiumanò. Galit Atlas, speaking of herself, adds:

“…sexual feelings remain fundamentally dysregulated in each of us. While we seek the pragmatic body of our mother, we turn to our lovers for answers. Our lovers are our new home.”

In some way, this is the search for the One, the reunification of split parts. “A woman can very easily place herself in the position of wanting her man to be everything for her: a man, for a woman, cannot be shared with anyone else.”

What happens to Bess when God gives her Jan back? Her jouissance exceeds the limit and shifts entirely outside language. Unlike Jan, Bess can endure the absence of sexuality because her demand and her need are entirely fulfilled. She takes on what Lacan defines as the position of Antigone: a position at the limit, unassailable, a promontory from which radiates a blinding, resplendent beauty. It is martyrdom.