From the British Best Interests norwegian style The Fortress, the international competition of the Séries Mania festival, which is being held until Friday March 24 in Lille, is marked by the predominance of social issues that agitate our times, whether it is the end of life, global warming, the disappearance of the working class or political oppression. Contrary to this fruitful but slightly anxiety-provoking trend, the miniseries The Drops of God is distinguished by its more intimate subject and its desire for formal exploration.
Initiated by France Télévisions, the project was made possible thanks to the addition of Hulu Japan and Apple TV+ – which will be the first to broadcast the series, at the end of April. Adapted from the famous manga by Shu Okimoto and Ryo Ryumon (which has no less than forty-four volumes), the eight-episode miniseries took nearly five years to see the light of day. Filmed in four different countries – Japan, France, Thailand and Italy – it makes wine the subject of a series of trials in which the daughter of a famous collector, Camille Léger (Fleur Geffrier), and his former student, Tomine Issei (Tomohisa Yamashita), to get his hands on the prestigious cellar set up in Japan, during his lifetime, by Alexandre Léger (Stanley Weber). If Issei is a seasoned oenologist, Camille has not drunk a drop of alcohol since her childhood, traumatized by the taste training to which her father subjected her.
“The material of the forty-four volumes of the manga has been considerably essentializedexplains Quoc Dang Tran, creator of the series, which he co-wrote with Clémence Madeleine-Perdrillat and Alice Vial. “It’s an abundant but very didactic manga on the world of wine, and the series should not be. » The manga originally pits two Japanese brothers against each other. The transposition of the story in two different countries and the introduction of a female character makes the series more easily exportable. But for Quoc Dang Tran, the binationality of the plot revolves around the same conception of refinement. “In France, wine carries this idea of transmission, know-how and meticulousness that we also find in Japanese culture. Finally, the mixture is much simpler than it seems. »
“Moral Ambiguity”
For Camille, who never spoke to her father again after the separation of her parents, wine is an instrument of oppression while it is that of a possible emancipation for Issei, a young bachelor from a wealthy family. but to which he is sadly subject. By naming Issei’s father “Hirokazu”, the screenwriter assumes the influence of the great Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, and in particular of his film Like father, like son (2013).
You have 34.5% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
