When Night Is Falling (1995)

The greatest movie ever made..!

Good concept, poorly executed.

Awesome Movie

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I saw this years ago at Brattle Theatre in Cambridge and never forgot it. My memory about the plot is vague but it goes something like this--It's about a woman living with a boyfriend who doesn't love or respect her. Then the circus comes to town and she falls in love with a woman working there. She tries to fight the feeling but finally gives in. It leads to a happy (if somewhat unbelievable) conclusion.This gained some controversy when it was first released because it was slapped with an NC-17. Why? The MPAA felt the sex scene between the two women was too explicit! That's absolutely ridiculous. I saw the uncut version and the sequence was soft core, erotic and not even remotely explicit. The director accused the MPAA of homophobia but cut out a minute or so to get the R rating. Sex aside this was beautifully done. The acting was good, the script interesting and well directed. It drew me in completely and the happy ending was great. If you get a chance see it. Wonderful movie.

Personally, I thought this movie was as bizarre as the "Sirkus of Souls" that was featured in it. Camille (Pascale Bussieres) is a mythology teacher at a Christian college. It is a typical movie-world caricature of all things Christian, so that the college is filled with rather unlikable characters, headed by "the Reverend" (David Fox). It's homophobic, and that part of the story is filled with cliché theological lines like "love the sinner and hate the sin." Camille is also having an affair (outside marriage) with Martin (Henry Czerny) - a theology teacher who, aside from one sex scene with Camille, appears to have both the personality and passion of a fish. After Camille's dog dies (and for some reason she decides to stick the dog's body in her refrigerator) she goes to do her laundry, and at the local laundry mat meets circus performer Petra (Rachael Crawford). Immediately attracted to each other, they circle for a bit, and then become passionate lovers.I understand that this is a kind of "finding yourself" story. Camille is breaking free of her past and discovering her real identity, etc., etc. But this was really way too weird – beginning with the decision to put the dog in the refrigerator. I also found it – shall we say – disingenuous (because that sounds much nicer than dishonest) when I discovered that in an interview a couple of years ago, writer-director Patricia Rozema flatly stated that her intention in this movie was not to "titillate" – because that's something only porn movies do, she said. Balderdash. If she wanted to avoid titillation perhaps she should have left out the three sex scenes in the movie, the one between Camille and Martin, and two others between Camille and Petra. If she wanted to avoid titillation perhaps she could have stuck with a sensual rather than a sexual portrayal of the relationship between Camille and Petra. The sensuality and even Camille's growing interest in Petra could have been portrayed quite easily without the sex (the massage scene, for example, was totally innocent and yet perhaps the most sensual scene in the entire movie.) Rozema seems to be protesting a bit too much on that point.The movie's ending got its point across, but there was really no mystery to the movie's point. Camille falls asleep in the snow and essentially freezes to death from hypothermia, but she's revived by – among other things – lots of cuddles and snuggles from Petra and she re-awakens into a new life. Yeah. I got it. What I really didn't get was why the dog woke up after – and where the dog was going? (2/10)

Pretty average film, the lead seems like quite a decent actress, shame that her love interest was so wooden. There were attempts to make some sort of religious points but they never seemed to lead anywhere, the plot is basic and shallow. The carnival elements were really campy but served their main purpose so far that they contrasted with the lifestyle of Camille. I thought it was a made for TV movie to be honest but it looks like it is supposed to be an art house film.The best thing about this film ?, there is an absolutely hilarious payoff at the end (although I am sure it was not intended to be funny by the film maker).

A chick flick, and not a bad one. I don't mean that as a put down, just an observation. User Ratings show a total of 674 votes, with males giving the movie a rating of 6.5 and females a rating of 7.7. The difference is probably statistically significant.The story itself doesn't add up to much, and there are multiple holes in the plot. The holes aren't small ones either, not the kind that can be easily overlooked. One example: Camille passes out in the snow and is in the process of freezing to death in a lonely woods when a couple of campers stumble on her mostly buried body. One camper runs to call an ambulance. Cut. Peta is daydreaming at home, gets a phone call, asks, "Where?", and the next thing we know she is at the campsite, before the ambulance. Alone in the tent with her lover, Petra croons over Camille's pale face tenderly. How did this come about? The mind boggles. It takes me back to when I was an usher in the Yiddish theater in Newark. Last scene of the play: a convict is left alone on the stage, strapped into an electric chair. Who then runs into the execution room? His mother! She throws herself on the floor and sobs onto the executionee's knees. I can think of no more reason for Peta to be alone with Camille than I can for Mom to be with her strapped-in son.By the way, just for the hell of it, what happens to Camille? She's evidently still alive at the end, though suffering from hypothermia. I know the dog survives because under the end credits we see the animal burrow out from under the snow, shake itself off, then perform various doggy gavottes on a field of ice.Wow, Camille and Petra make a striking couple. Petra is beautiful and sexy in a conventional way, like a model. Her performance isn't bad either. It's competent enough and there is one moment when her employer asks her how she feels about leaving Camille and her face seems washed over with sorrow before she lowers it onto the guy's shoulder.Camille could be a model too, but not an ordinary one. She looks like a cross between Anouk Aimee and Martin Short. (Maybe a founder effect in the gene pool.) Her features are sharp and angular, where Petra's are soft and pliable looking, but she is very feminine.I can't comment on their figures. Not enough, in my opinion, is shown of them. There is hardly any nudity. And the sex scenes are all tender and loving and consist of aesthetically correct caresses of fingers across a vast expanse of unidentifiable but still succulent-looking flesh. Nobody moans or talks dirty. Well -- no movie is perfect. I can't understand why this movie received a more restricted rating than a simple R. It's really not much more than a rather sweet soapy love story.I should mention Henry Czerny as the confused and angry boyfriend of Camille. He has been uniformly good in every movie I've seen him in. He has a distinctive actorish face that could go either way -- into reason and compassion or into the villainy that has been his usual lot.The movie deserves plaudits for avoiding two traps, however obvious those traps are. It does not bash men and it does not bash religion. Neither potential target does anything to help the situation, not nearly as much as Pure Love does, but both do their limited best.Plot holes and dialog solecisms ("This morning was an anomaly". Cf: "Last night was a mistake.") aside, the story is nicely presented. The director, Patricia Rozema, takes it at a deliberate pace and decorates the screen with occasional arty images or unexpected phantasmagoria. ("Arty" in a good sense.) When the circus trucks leave town at the end her camera lingers on a poster of a huge eye which may not carry much symbolic weight but effectively grabs the viewer's attention.I wound up hoping that Camille could be revived without loss of limbs and that she and Petra would somehow make it together, although, as Petra had earlier observed, "Everything turns ordinary after a while." The main impression the movie leaves is that Toronto has some thoroughly rotten winter weather. Any lesbians who think they've got it tough ought to consider the circumstances of the Iroquois. A winter solstice in Canada -- and no De Longhi.