The Infinite Distance

Peichi Su

"Plus que jamais"[1] a Franco-Norwegian film, shows the happy life of a young couple Hélène and Mathieu and how this unexpectedly takes a turn when Hélène is diagnosed with a serious lung disease. From then, their relationship suffers an impasse. Facing the imminent death of his wife, Mathieu tries everything satisfy all of her needs and guarantees her that, as long as they are together, she will be fine. But while attempting to “become one” with his wife -in a wish to erase the radical and structural loneliness to which every speaking-being is condemned Mathieu runs up against an unexpected decision of Hélène: quite the opposite to his plan. She has decided to undertake a solo trip to Norway, that is, without him. It appears that the approach of death -a real that is neither representable nor symbolisable- has triggered an awakening in Hélène. Maybe an awakening from a love that had kept her asleep and prevented an awakening to the real?

Fabián Fajnwaks, in his text “¿Existe el amor real?”[2], refers to Lacan´s formula "What makes up for the sexual relationship is love" stating that it denotes a shift in his last teaching. It will no longer be a question of the function of veil that love comes to occupy in its contingency, that is, love that offers the illusion of suspending the non-existent rapport that can be written between two partners. In his last seminars, Lacan will define love as the "connection between two knowledges" that allows each of the partners to "weave their knot."[3] Lacan will introduce a love that will leave aside the phallic mediation and will make a shift from love centered on phallic meaning towards the real of love understood as "the connectiveness between two knowledges."[4]

In Seminar XXI “Les Non-Dupes Errent”, Lacan emphasises that “Love is two half-sayings that do not overlap. And this is what gives it its fatal character.”[5] Here Fajnwaks underlines: “A real love is possible when one has renounced all loving fusion by seeking to make the sexual relationship exist from love. The love that is in question here is no longer the love that demands love, the one that asks for reciprocity as a complement to the being that is lacking from the speaking-being. It is a love purified of its part of jouissance, the one that articulates the fundamental fantasy for example, which leads Lacan to speak of “a more civilized love.”[6]

The poet Rilke captures something of this: “An absolute sharing between two beings is impossible [...] once the realisation is accepted that even between two closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving this distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky.”[7] Mathieu and Hélène will have to face this infinite distance between them, no matter how unexpected it may turn out.

References

[1]    Released in 2022. Emily Atef director.

[2]    Fajnwaks, Fabián. “¿Existe el amor real?”, El Psicoanálisis, Issue 39, Revista de la Escuela Lacaniana de Psicoanálisis, March, 2022.

[3]    Lacan, J., The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXI: Les Non-Dupes Errent, lesson of December 18, 1973, unpublished.

[4]    Lacan, J., The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XXI: Les Non-Dupes Errent, lesson of January 15, 1974, unpublished.

[5]    Ibid.

[6]    Fajnwaks, F., “El nuevo amor: Otro amor”, Punto de Fuga, Issue 5, Madrid, Spain. Available online: https://puntodefugarevista.wordpress.com/

[7]    Rilke, R.-M., Letter to Emanuel von Bodman, trans. J. Bannard & M.D. H. Norton, The Norton Library, New York, 1969.