When Night Is Falling

This movie was passionate, beautiful and sensual. I was captivated by the generous spirit of the actors, director and the poignant story they told.

What a risk to tell the story of the love of two women...to tell the story of true love.

Brilliant!

Bought this film several years back. It had played at several theatres during its first release but I never did get down to actually viewing this film. When I finally bought the film and watched it, it definately went beyond my expectations. Everything about the film was near perfect. One could feel the emotions that each character was conveying on screen. The film was beautifully shot. The love scenes were incredibly erotic. A near perfect film.

I finally saw the film and was very moved. The direction by Patricia Rozema celebrates the love between two women in a romantically subtle way intertwined with the most achingly haunting music I have heard in a long time. With kudos to the actresses (Pascale Bussieres and Rachael Crawford) for portraying the want and need, surrender,confusion, and finally acceptance of their love. I'm sure I'll watch it often and recommend it to others.

A professor once tried to define what makes classic literature. Timeless quality and value, stilted language... Whatever the definition, this is it. The intrinsic love forming between two women against race, religion, and promise. The spark of love in unforgiving winds... flickering. Captured in the surreal fashion that is too close to reality.

Pascale Bussieres, a Quebecois actress makes her English- speaking debut, as Camille, a teacher at a Christian college that has never let loose.

She is crying in a laundromat after losing her dog, when she meets Petra (Rachael Crawford), a circus performer. Showing up at the circus to deliver laundry that Petra left behind, Camille enters a world of fantasy that she has never experienced.

Canadian film maker Patricia Rozema (Kit Kittredge: An American Girl) gives us a strangely surreal world in which freedom and change battles repression and conformity.

The film was given an NC-17 rating, ostensibly for the lesbian sex scenes, and this affected the ratings given by some reviewers, but the heterosexual scene with Camille's fiancée was much more graphic. The lesbian scenes are tastefully done in a soft focus and very beautiful.

Everyone dreams of running off to join the circus at one time or another. In this case, it is a metaphor for being who you truly are. It takes courage, and we wonder whether or not Camille possesses that courage.

A gloriously beautiful film with a marvelous love story.