Pornographers, The

For those who disdain going along with the crowd, and are therefore looking for alternatives to "Total Recall" and "Back to the Future, Part III," three new so-called "art" films are playing this weekend.

The best is "Longtime Companion," which has been getting a lot of national press lately as the first mainstream theatrical film to deal with AIDS among the homosexual community. "The Pornographers," despite the titillating title, is a non-exploitive 1966 Japanese character study by the respected filmmaker Shohei Imamura. And "Speaking Parts" is a Canadian film that has received some press from its reception at various prestigious film festivals.

-"LONGTIME COMPANION" is a sensitive, insightful look at how AIDS affected the homosexual community in the '80s and seems to offer as well a low-key plea for acceptance from the heterosexual community.

A restrained, slick and very well-made picture, "Longtime Companion" covers most of the decade, focusing on a group of homosexual friends, ordinary people living in the Southern California area.

Though some are in show business, it is this ordinariness of the characters that gives the film its anchor, as we come to identify with the day-to-day concerns and, ultimately, the crises they face when AIDS begins to whittle down their number.

Of the ensemble cast the most compelling performance comes from veteran actor Bruce Davison, whose lover is one of the victims, but the entire cast is excellent and the story, which could have been handled in an exploitive manner, instead takes on universal overtones to attract a wide mainstream audience.

This is probably calculated to some degree, but the film's success is a testament to the talent of screenwriter Craig Lucas, who manages to write scenes that are separated by lengthy periods of time and yet never seem fragmented, and director Norman Rene, who extracts remarkable performances from the actors and power from the script with a subtlety that is all too rare in movies these days. There's nothing flamboyant about this picture, which makes it all the more intimate and moving.

"Longtime Companion" is rated R for its homosexual themes, along with some nudity and profanity.

-"THE PORNOGRAPHERS" is saddled with an unfortunate title, and Cinema in Your Face! owner Greg Tanner says that as a result it seems to be attracting the wrong audience. If you're going in expecting something salacious or lurid, you're in the wrong movie. (Go see "Wild Orchid" instead.)