Note: This piece is a personal letter to Gheorghe, a character in the 2017 release God’s Own Country, played by Alec Secarean.
Dear Gheorghe,
I still remember that night when I first (using first intentionally cause I have met you quite a few times after that) met you. My eyes were wet, my mind was numb, & my soul was full of love.
When Johnny met you for the first time(as did I) & he mispronounced your name & then you rectified it; it was such a queerish way to begin the journey with you. You were a mystery at that time. Your voice was mysterious. Your appearance was mysterious. Your silence & moreover your eyes were mysterious. It was so satisfyingly beautiful to see you reveal the layers of your character slowly one after one meticulously. Very casually & at the same time very conscientiously you showed not only Johnny but also me why sex is not all about two bodies getting intimated together but much more than that. You taught Johnny & once again made me realise why sex is called love-making. That night in the countryside when you stopped Johnny from going down on you when you held his hand & taught him to caress you, I saw a flower of love to bloom.
The way you were there with Johnny, sometimes loudly, sometimes silently was a lesson to me. The way you taught Johnny to be responsible towards his family was like seeing an imprisoned bud confined by emotionless rituals getting bloomed in an impeccable sunny morning.
You took me on a journey full of solitude and calmness; a journey full of sadness but still surprisingly pleasing. It was a journey full of heartbreaks, hope & love simultaneously. Throughout the movie, both of you barely talked but still, I loved the sound; the sound of your silence, the sound of your expression, the sound of your eyes, the sound of your love.
I would have reacted in the same way as you did when you felt betrayed. You made Johnny from an unacquainted escapist to someone who tries to make things better. At the end when you both met & your love for each other was avowedly perceptible, it was such a bliss to perceive that.
You were not one of those fictional characters made up in any Disney Studios, you were one of us, you were real, you were raw, you were me. You were the expression of an internalized self-captive emotion who even after being in chaotic circumstances, internal and external, knows how to live freely, proudly.
I just wish I could tell you, “Oh Gheorghe, take me to your country, to God’s Own Country.”
Love, J