What binds us (France 3): these other titles that the film could have carried…

Thursday December 29, 2022 at 9:10 p.m., France 3 broadcasts What binds usa film by Cédric Klapisch that will delight lovers of wine… and puns, because behind this title hides a host of anecdotes as hilarious as they are fascinating.

Choosing the title of a film is not an easy task and it is not uncommon to see a project being renamed several times during its production. On the Marsupilami’s trail by Alain Chabat was, for example, almost called Houba! The Marsupilami and the Chicxulub Orchid. We don’t really regret that the production preferred to change it… Cédric Klapisch also had a hard time finding a satisfactory title for his twelfth feature film, What binds uswhich we highly recommend. This dramatic comedy broadcast on Thursday December 29, 2022 at 9:10 p.m. on France 3 follows the journey of siblings reunited by the imminent death of their father, a Burgundian winegrower. As the harvest approaches, Jean, Juliette and Jérémie have to make an important decision about the future of the family farm. How to translate the winegrower universe of the film in the title without risking a clumsy pun? That was the director’s challenge.

A multitude of alternative titles

It must be said that Cédric Klapisch is a specialist in cinematographic witticisms. We obviously think of the famous Young Peril but also two me or the recent In body… One would almost want to analyze his cinema through the prism of psychoanalysis, but it would seem above all that the director is an inveterate joker, and What binds us did not escape tradition. It was by digging into his own filmography that he found inspiration. Because if the film was first called soberly Winethen 30 spring and Wine and the windthe filmmaker once thought of a rather amusing alternative title: “One day when I was done editing I jokingly thought it would be funny to call it ‘What binds us‘, with reference to ‘What moves me‘, this short film that I made 27 years ago!“StudioCanal, the production company, unfortunately will not share its sense of humor and will judge the title too much”comical“. But the reference to the family “knot” at least puts him on the right track…

“It’s a movie about the link, not the knot“

Because it is this aspect that Cédric Klapisch wants to explore, as he explains: “We also mentionedWhat binds us‘, I thought and I said to myself that they were right: ‘What binds us‘ was more interesting. On the one hand there is the play on words with wine dregs, and then let’s say that the family knot and family bond are not the same thing. It’s a film about the link, not the knot…” Gradually, the idea made its way and even allowed the director to become aware of the real stakes of the project. It was “not so much a film about wine per se” but on “bond and brotherhood” which, moreover, characterize quite well the imagination associated with this drink. Klapisch confirms: “I was really able to verify on this shoot how unifying wine is… I must admit that the aperitifs were particularly pleasant.“To the point of admitting not having”never experienced shooting as convivial as this one.” It makes you want !