Watch Man on Wire For Free

Memorable, crazy movie

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

As Good As It Gets

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

I know this sounds corny, the kind of stuff borrowed from any underdog story, but having recently watched "Rudy" might have disabled my cynicism and I dare anyone not to believe that anything is indeed possible once you set your mind to it, after watching James Marsh' Oscar-winning "Man on Wire". This is one of the most thrilling, captivating and inspiring documentaries you'll ever see. The film consists of archive footage, a few recreated scenes and many interviews but within its simplicity, it speaks a thousand words about the power of human determination, of Philippe Petit, a man with a crazy passion, but a passion nonetheless, a crazy dream, but a dream nonetheless... and his struggle to make it possible in a short span of time. The man walked on a wire between the two World Trade Center towers. And even he at some point thought it was impossible while it was just difficult. As the proverb says, triumph without perils brings no glory.So he did it, and he didn't just walk, according to the NYPD sergeant who was waiting for him to get on the ground, he danced, laid on the wire and walked for 45 minutes before coming to his senses. We guess from the start that the walking will be kept for the climax, it's all in the way the film portrays the whole operation and even if it's mostly told by narration, it functions like a great caper film. All the archetypes are reunited: the leader, the timing, the more-or-less reliable sidekicks and last-minute newcomers, the brain of the operation (Jean-Louis Blondeau), the foreign sidekick (Mark, the Australian), the romantic interest (Annie Allix), and even an inside man working in the Towers.It's one of these cases where truth is stranger, sometimes even more contrived, than fiction, some pass as deliverymen, others as office workers, they get false badges, they stay hidden hours under tarps surrounded by guards whose incompetence would have been unbelievable in a real movie. There's a moment where Petit circles around a pillar on the opposite side of a guard and even runs into him, had the cop just turned his back and it was over. Even when they met at the two towers, a falling cable adds to the suspense and force them to postpone the operation till the morning when they're all exhausted but the elevator seems to work, when it's now or never.And still, there's more to appreciate about the film before the walking, starting with this dedication to what they call the 'Coup' and whose roots begin with childhood. Petit, when he was 'petit', loved to climb things and walk on ropes, he had that 'daredevil' thing in mind and became a unicycle rider, a street-juggler and a wire-walker. He made his bones in Notre Dame de Paris then Sidney Harbour Bridge but the real epiphany came at a dentist office when a magazine cover announced the upcoming inauguration of the Twin Towers, the highest edifices in the world. It became an evidence; one he could materialize with a simple drawing. Two vertical rectangles and a line and you have a dream, draw a stick figure on it, and you have your Man on Wire.And what a man indeed. Fittingly name Petit, Phillipe is an elfin, voluble and funny raconteur, once you hear him, you understand how his friend and girlfriend were easily drawn to his charisma. We need people who think that nothing is impossible because we need to believe that this world has more to offer than reality and routine, that's why we love magic, to raise beyond the banality of our world. On August 7th, 1974, people raised their heads to see a man offering them that gift. And it was a gift as during his journey, Petit took the time to kneel on the wire and wave at the photographer like a salute to those who can grab the beauty of his gesture. Ironically, many pictures were taken because, for all the meticulous planning, they forgot to turn the cameras on.The rest is history and of course, while watching the film, it's impossible not to keep in mind that decades after, people would raise their head to see planes crashing into the towers. September 11 is like a ghost haunting a rather cheerful and inspirational documentary, perhaps the evil side of the same message, nothing is indeed impossible even for the worst. I guess like many others, I was misled by the opening credits that show the childhood pictures of Petit paralleled with the building of the Towers, and I thought the conclusion would evoke the tragic event. But like many others, retrospectively, I'm glad it wasn't mentioned. The film makes us mourn the Towers already without spoiling its joyful mood.And what remains is a remarkable lesson about life. Even tightrope walking is a great metaphor of life, the first step you take, the nerve to do it and then just follow your heart and go, you can stop, you can have a rest, but you don't look back...still, you can look down. Petit does look down because he knows it's a view of a lifetime, and actually looking down helped him to overcome his fear. When he saw how cold, windy and dangerous the altitude was, he needed to understate the heights it by riding over the top of the towers in a helicopter. The trick worked but I don't think even that could have stopped Petit, he knew it was impossible and that's why he did it. Why he did it? He has no explanation, like Forrest Gump, he felt like doing it. And that's the best message of the film, it's not much what we want to do, but the determination to do it that inspires people. I don't know if I admire Petit for his stunt more than his nerve, but I know that whatever I don't achieve, I'll blame it on myself. Nothing is impossible indeed.

It is remarkably melancholic, the ending leaving you with the bitter-sweet taste of victory at the cost of perhaps something greater, but there's also a strange joy found in this slightly 'insane' man's veraciously vivid, infectiously excited passion as he recollects what is essentially a heist, only it doesn't end in a theft it ends in, as he and his friends put it, a gift. It's a bizarre goal to have and yet you wholly understand it because the documentary not only pulls you into its narrative but also into the maniacally single-minded mind of the motivated wire-walker at its centre, wrapping you up in his wild, wide-eyed dream so you don't wonder why anyone would want to do it but rather why anyone wouldn't, and its this that keeps the piece working even through its weirdest turns, when things suddenly turn sad, spiritual or even sexual. 7/10

On the morning of August 7th, 1972, in New York, something occurred that brought shock and exhilaration to the city's inhabitants. Eccentric French acrobat Philippe Petit wire-walked between the two towers of the World Trade Centre, as onlookers watched in awe and the police waited patiently at either side. Not only did he walk between the towers without safety precautions, but he also tip-toed gleefully back and forth, beckoned for the helpless police to come and catch him, and even found time to have a lie down in the process. With Robert Zemeckis's The Walk currently in cinemas, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt starring as Petit, it seemed a perfect time to re-visit James Marsh's miraculous documentary Man on Wire.After encountering Petit on a radio show, what struck director Marsh so much about the story is how the meticulous planning that went into this highly illegal act and the round-up of Petit's assisting crew resembled that of a heist movie. With thrilling reconstructions, cleverly played out with silhouettes and shadows, we witness the intense research that went into making this extremely dangerous stunt feasible and safe, the various undercover operations done in plain sight to gather visual information on the building, and of course, the job itself. At one point, Petit and a colleague hide from wandering security officers under a plastic tarp for what feels like an eternity. Ever wondered how they got the wire over that tremendous drop? Well, now you'll know, and it's probably not how you thought.The central spectacle aside, Man on Wire is very much about Petit himself. Narcissist, egotist, attention-seeker - he is of course all of these things (what great performers aren't?) - but he is also highly intelligent, charismatic, and uses beautiful language when he talks. From a young age, he dreamt of walking in the clouds, and his early life was neatly synchronised with the construction of the World Trade Centre, to which he kept close tabs on over the years. Dazzling crowds with a unicycle and slight of hand tricks, Petit trained for his ultimate goal by walking between towers at Notre Dame Cathedral and Sydney Harbour Bridge. But the World Trade Centre remained an almost mythical entity to Petit, something that was built for him and something he was born to conquer.Anyone who suffers from a fear of heights may perhaps want to avoid the film. While his climactic walk in New York is shown only with still photographs (no video footage was taken from the top), his previous walks are caught in all their vertigo-inducing glory. Yet these stunts aren't designed to terrify, and although they certainly forced my heart into my mouth, they create an almost transcendent sense of wonder. When recollecting the World Trade Centre walk, many of Petit's accomplices break down in tears. This was a truly special thing - a man literally walking in the clouds - and it is something that can never be done again. It's also fitting that the 9/11 attacks are not mentioned in the movie, as this is as a much a love- letter to the memory of the twin towers as it is to the human spirit of Philippe Petit.

Man on Wire tells the story of how Frenchman Phillippe Petit walked between the South and North Towers of the World Trade Center one August day in 1974. He wowed the world for 45 minutes as he danced on wire cable tied between the two buildings. This was not a spur-of- the-moment prank for a small and puckish man who spent many years planning this audacious display of joyful rebelliousness with a little help from his friends and a few strangers. Four-fifths of the documentary, which runs approximately one hour and thirty-five minutes, is spent giving the audience a thumbnail profile of this unicyclist-juggler-wire walker extraordinaire and unraveling the blueprint for his quixotic adventure. The 2008 film is a mix of current talking-head interviews, archival photographs and film footage, home movies, and re-enactments of events before and after the historic walk. After spending the bulk of the movie focusing on the planning, the last twenty-five minutes goes at a fast clip, retelling the minutes before the actual walk, showing the walk itself, and winding up with a short aftermath. Too much footage is spent on prologue and not enough on epilogue. Mr. Petit's story is certainly worthy of a documentary, but one leaves the screen wanting to know more of what has happened to Mr. Petit and his accomplices 34 years after the fact. He still walks wire and talks about the need to break rules, but what has that philosophy reaped him after all these years? During the last part of the film, Mr. Petit and his co-conspirators relate how their stunt almost literally fell through their hands as they were setting up the wiring. "At some point, I gave probably too much cable," Petit says. His helpers chime in and say "We could not hold it…. We almost lost the wire." One could say Man on Wire sags up front, is supple in the middle, and too tight at the end.