Jean-Michel Jarre Movies

An ordinary working woman helps to spark a revolution in this historical drama inspired by a true story. Agnieszka Kowalska (Katharina Thalbach) has been working as a welder in the shipyards of Gdansk, Poland, since 1950, struggling to support her son since divorcing her husband. Working conditions at the shipyard have always been difficult and dangerous, and in 1961 Agnieszka begins speaking out, confronting her bosses about the rights of the workers; her fellow employees are at once grateful to her and worried about what might happen if she rocks the boat too hard. Agnieszka's personal life takes a turn for the better when she meets and marries Kazimierz Walczak (Dominique Horwitz), a kind man who moves into her neighborhood. However, after a serious accident at the shipyard claims the lives of several employees and their families are denied pension benefits, Agnieszka takes the bosses to task and begins organizing a union to protect the rights of the workers, an effort that slowly evolves into Poland's rebellious Solidarity movement. Directed by Volker Schlöndorff, Strike (aka Strajk -- Die Heldin von Danzig) was based on the true story of Polish labor advocate Anna Walentynowicz, though Walentynowicz has publicly criticized the film for certain historical inaccuracies. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The first feature film of Benoit Peeters is a mystery drama involving a young director, an exiled writer, and the woman who comes between them. Virgil Iancu (Florin Piersic) is a Romanian director who arrives in Paris to make a documentary about Constantin Dolinescu (Mihai Dinvale), a famous dissident writer who fled to France in 1987 and had begun to make a film before disappearing without a trace. For his research, Virgil interviews several people and collects various documents. All this evidence plus the extracts from the two versions of the unfinished film of the exiled writer lead him to believe that the man had a tormented character. Dolinescu also seems to have encountered several problems with his film project. The meeting of Virgil Iancu with an actress from Dolinescu's unfinished film and finally Dolinescu himself reveal not only the mystery surrounding Dolinescu but also the motive behind the young man's quest and the close links which bind him to the writer. Le Dernier Plan was screened in the Filmmakers of the Present section of the 1999 Locarno International Film Festival. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide

Jean Michel Jarre, Europe's celebrated electronic music keyboardist and composer, took the synthesizer to a new level of popularity in the 1970s. Early in his career he composed for films and ballets, but was not largely successful until his 1977 U.K. smash, Oxygène. Since the French native's breakthrough, his efforts have been primarily focused on his revolutionary electronic operas. Oxygene Moscow captures Jarre's performance at a 1997 celebration in honor of Moscow's 850th birthday. Bolshoi Kid and the Red Army Choirs accompany Jarre on a number of pieces. ~ Dennis Proctor, All Movie Guide

A wildly inventive and entertaining comic nightmare from former Roger Corman prodigy Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs), this screwball odyssey is a ride to remember. Jeff Daniels plays clean-cut New York bond trader Charlie Driggs, who accepts a ride home from a strange but attractive lower-class woman named Lulu (Melanie Griffith). The sexy Louise Brooks lookalike doesn't take him home, but shanghais him for a bizarre roadtrip to Virginia that includes kinky bondage sex, destruction of property, and robbery. Things get stranger when Lulu tells Charlie that her real name is Audrey and takes him home to meet her mother, asking him to pose as her husband. The charade continues until her high-school reunion, where the roadtrip (and the entire film) takes a sharp U-turn into psycho-thriller territory. Audrey's dangerously psychotic ex-con husband, Ray Sinclair (Ray Liotta), shows up. What had been a liberating fling for Charlie turns into a bloody and vicious battle for survival. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

A young boy named Reine (Tomas Fryk) employs a simple subterfuge to escape going to Children's Island, a nearby summer vacation spot, and instead sneaks off alone to the streets of Stockholm to find answers to the larger questions on life and death. His single mother (Anita Ekstroem) is unaware of her son's truancy and leaves for an extended tryst with her lover (Ingvar Hirdvall), thinking that the 11-year old is safe and taken care of at the island. Reine stays for awhile with two lonely spinsters and once with some street actors, but generally he wanders from one situation to the next, and with his tape recorder he recounts his feelings and the things he has seen. Throughout his experiences, he consistently discovers that adults employ subterfuge just as he has -- only the adults he finds often have either frankly or subliminally sexual encounters in mind. Reine also tests the waters literally, flirting with death by seeing how long he can remain under. As a result of his exploration of the world, he is loathe to grow up and be like all the adults who have tried to take advantage of him. As his innocence fades, Reine's journey ends, leaving many adult viewers to wonder if childhood may not be the better part of life. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this French film, Rose (Simone Signoret) is the pillar on which her family depends, and against which it pulls. These forces are held in equilibrium until a murdered woman's body is found near their farm, the Les Granges Brulees of the film's title. At first, Police Inspector Larcher (Alain Delon) feels that the evidence points to her youngest son. By the time everyone in the family is cleared of suspicion, long-buried truths about each of them will be revealed, and the family will never be the same again. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide