Seminar

What would be a Lacanian reading of the moment of the arrival of Florette’s letter (via Delphine)?

In the “Seminar”, Lacan draws on Freud to claim that people are innately pre-programmed to act as they do, and so everybody is fated. The set of emotions and psychical feelings that a person has is already pre-programmed; the unconscious will always have desire.

A Lacanian reading of Berri’s films, then, would be that the “arrival” of Florette’s letter (via the medium of Delphine) simply confirms what has always been the case, although the characters did not know it.

The characters in the Water of the Hills act according to the symbolic order governed by the (symbolic, philosophico-linguistic, and material) letter, even though they do not know that a (material) letter exists.

They act according to the rules of the signifying chain (the film’s own logic), governed by the letter (in all senses of the word) nonetheless, “which the subject receives from the itinerary of the signifier” [1] (the letter), according to Lacan.

The missing letter in Berri’s Water of the Hills films suggests the idea that people are fated and pre-programmed, and that there is a symbolic order: the characters do not know who they are, and yet they act in accordance with the (oedipal-related) fate.

In “The Purloined Letter: Overview”, Muller and Richardson concisely state that “the symbolic order determines the subject according to laws that govern a finite number of possibilities, even for what appears to be a matter of ´chance`”.

In the Water of the Hills, there are many conditions contributing to the unfolding of events.

Firstly, Florette’s letter happens not to arrive.

Secondly, Ugolin happens to encounter a carnation-farmer and happens to steal some plants.

Thirdly, Florette’s brother happens to die after Cesar swings him against a rock and leaves him there.

Fourthly, Jean happens to decide to uproot from the town and come to the village (to find his fate?).

Fifthly, Cesar determines to have the land at any cost, cements the spring, and happens to be ruthless towards Jean in his plan.

A Lacanian reading of the film suggests that these conditions, these “chance” occurrences, are actually all determined by the symbolic order of the letter.

This “fate” occurs because of a missing material letter. The fact that the whole chain of events is triggered by the non-arrival of the very same letter, that causes us to re-interpret the whole story as tragedy, complicates our reading.

The characters are governed by the itinerary of a letter that they do not know exists. Cesar and Jean fight to plant seed in the mother, Cesar effectively commits infanticide, and Ugolin incestuously falls in love.

A Lacanian reading of Berri’s films, based on the “Seminar”, would be that Florette’s letter, when it finally “arrives” (that is, when Delphine in the final scene transmits the contents verbally to the receiver, Cesar,), proves what has always been the case: it suggests that the characters are bound by the logic of the symbolic order, the logic of the letter.

The missing letter, according to Lacan, seems to illustrate that characters are controlled by the symbolic order of the letter, because although they were not aware of the letter, they still acted to a certain (oedipal-related) pattern. Lacan argues that meaning always gets there in the end.

• Lacan, “Seminar on the Purloined Letter” in The Purloined Poe, p. 29.
• Muller and Richardson, “The Purloined Letter: Overview” in The Purloined Poe, p. 73. (Italics added)

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