EIFF
‘We didn’t want to see the landscape, rather the effect it has on the people within it’
I knew I wanted this story to be incredibly immersive and emotional, and that I wanted to discover Johnny’s world through his eyes. So the camera is very close to him all the time. We didn’t want to see the landscape, rather the effect it has on the people within it. So we see him traipsing through the mud, how cold he is, how his hood is up and his head is down. He is battling that landscape, rather than enjoying it.’
Some enjoyment does i nally come, however, as Johnny and Gheorghe embark on an increasingly intimate relationship which includes some sex scenes that, while being entirely true to the story and its characters, are undeniably explicit. Lee, however, is unconcerned that these moments will become a bigger talking point than the i lm itself. ‘To me, the sex feels very much part of the world,’ he says. ‘I always knew that Johnny was going to go on what is, for him, a transformative emotional journey,’ he says. ‘But I knew he wouldn’t sit around, navel-gazing and talking about his feelings. So I showed that transformation in the way he reacts to sex, that change that happens within him through intimacy and touch. I had to be truthful with the way I depicted that, visually. Also, I feel that they are no more explicit than what you see on TV; I think the only difference is that they are two men.’
The i lm arguably also pushes boundaries in the way it realistically depicts the full range of male emotion which, in cinema, traditionally falls into the category of either square-jawed stoicism or campy melodrama. Lee, however, challenges the notion that his i lm is gender specii c. ‘I know I decided to write a i lm about two men, but I’ve never distinguished emotion by gender,’ he says. ‘The starting point for me in writing this story was working out the toughest thing that I have ever had to go through is falling in love, and making myself vulnerable enough to love and be loved. That was what I wanted to explore.’
As an exploration of love and a study of a little-seen part of British life, God’s Own Country is both a sensitive and accomplished piece of i lmmaking and a strikingly bold debut. Its i lmmaker, however, laughs off any suggestion that his choice of i rst project could be described as brave. ‘I could only make this i lm the way in which I made it,’ Lee says, ‘and I was incredibly supported by the BFI and Creative England who only challenged me to go deeper. ‘Everybody who makes a i lm goes through the same emotional journey,’ he continues. ‘It takes over your life. I’m just really thrilled that people are i nding things in the i lm they really like, and that resonate with them. That, to me, is the biggest compliment you can get.’
God’s Own Country opens the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Wed 21 Jun. General release from Fri 1 Sep.
20 THE LIST 1 Jun–31 Aug 2017