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{{BSZ}}  Let us approach the central topic of [[Lacan]]'s [[seminar ]] <i>[[Encore]]</i> - the paradoxes of [[feminine ]] [[sexuality ]] - through Lars von Trier's <i>Breaking the Waves</i> (<i><b>BW</b></i>), a [[film ]] which enables us to avoid the fatal misreading of Lacan's [[notion ]] of feminine <i>[[jouissance]]</i>.</tt></font><p><font size="-0"><tt><i><b>BW</b></i>, a film [[about ]] the inherent deadlocks of Goodness,<a href="#1"><font color="#adb5bd" size="-0"><tt>¹</tt></font></a> is set during the 70's in a small Presbyterian [[community ]] on the West Coast of Scotland. Bess, a simpleminded and deeply [[religious ]] local [[girl]], [[marries ]] Jan, a hearty oil-rig worker, courting the disapproval of the village elders. After the [[sexual ]] ecstasy of their honeymoon Bess can't bear having Jan [[return ]] to the rigs, so she begs God to return Jan to her saying that in [[exchange ]] for his return she would put up with any trial of her [[faith]]. Soon afterwards, as if in answer to her prayers, Jan effectively returns, but paralyzed from the waist down due to an accident on the oil-rig. Confined to his hospital bed, Jan tells Bess she must make [[love ]] to [[other ]] men and describe her experiences to him in detail-this way, she will keep awake his will to live: although she will be doing the act physically with other men, the [[true ]] sex will occur in their conversation...</tt></font></p><p>

<font size="-0"><tt> Here, of course, the obvious reproach imposes itself: is thus <i><b>BW</b></i> not the utmost "[[male ]] chauvinist" film celebrating and elevating into a [[sublime ]] act of sacrifice the [[role ]] which is forcefully imposed on [[women ]] in patriarchal societies, that of serving as the support of male masturbatory [[fantasies]]? Bess is completely [[alienated ]] in the male [[phallic ]] [[economy]], sacrificing her <i>jouissance</i> for the sake of her crippled partner's [[mental ]] [[masturbation]]. However, at a closer look, things get more [[complex]]. According to the standard version of the [[Lacanian ]] [[theory]], the [[non-all ]] (<i>pas-tout</i>) of [[woman ]] means that not all of a woman is caught up in the phallic <i>jouissance</i>: She is always [[split ]] between a part of her which accepts the role of a [[seductive ]] [[masquerade ]] aimed at fascinating the man, attracting the male [[gaze]], and [[another ]] part of her which resists [[being ]] drawn into the [[dialectic ]] of (male) [[desire]], a mysterious <i>jouissance</i> beyond [[Phallus ]] about which [[nothing ]] can be said...</tt></font></p><p>

<a [[name]]="1">1. -I wanted to do a film about goodness- "Naked Miracles," Interview with Lars von Trier, [[Sight ]] and Sound, Vol. 6, Issue 10, p 12.