爱是生死相许

故事从1981年7月13日纽约时报第一次公开提及“爱滋病"这种新病毒时展开。在曼哈顿的一群同居男女朋友受这种病毒影响而产生了不同的变化，某些人因感染病毒而去世，某些人则坚强地抵抗病魔，期待有一日出现可以医治这种世纪黑死病的药物。导演诺曼．瑞内采用比较通俗剧化的方式来描述这批同性恋者十年来的感情和生活变化，尽管比较浮光掠影，却有效地唤起九十年代初期对爱滋病还认识不深的观众对剧中人的遭遇产生共鸣。Perhaps the first film to put a human face on the AIDS epidemic, Longtime Companion follows the lives of a small circle of friends from the first mention of the disease in the New York Times in 1981. First referred to as "Gay-Related-Immune-Disorder," we watch the effect of the disease as it devastates the lives of our protagonists. Jumping between Manhattan and Fire Island, vignettes carry us from the it-couldn't-happen-to-me mentality of the early days of the disease to the invasive effect it has had on all of our lives, today. The title of the film comes from the New York Times' refusal to acknowledge homosexual relationships in their obituary section during this period. Instead, survivors were referred to as "Longtime Companions" of the deceased.