ElMaruecan82
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.
classicsoncall
Not only is this documentary an eye opener on how Phillip Petit planned and executed his wire-walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center, but there's enough archival footage of the actual construction of the Towers to make for an interesting subject in itself. One never considers the amount of time and preparation that goes into a stunt like this; most times one sees something like this on TV news and takes it for granted that some nut just decided to do something crazy. In Petit's case, he'd been at his craft for at least five years, with prior high wire walks between the towers of Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral and the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia. I read with some interest a couple of other reviewers who compared Petit's exploit here to a heist caper, and to a great degree, that's exactly what it was.The documentary illustrates with some detail how Petit and some loyal friends faked work orders and created phony invoices to gain access to the Towers under construction, and the patience required to out-wait security personnel once inside. As for the walk itself, simply incredible to imagine that the man ventured out on a thin cable strung between the Towers a quarter mile in the air. I have to say, even though I'm not prone to vertigo, I couldn't take a single step at that height on a plank ten feet wide with guardrails on both sides. My legs would be jelly, not to mention my insides.Though the walk in it's entirety isn't shown in full, one doesn't need to see it to understand the danger and excitement all rolled into one that the daredevil Petit must have felt. Yet he looked perfectly calm, having practiced his stunt thousands of times before the real thing. The funniest moment of this film for me was when Phillipe Petit was led away by policemen following one of his prior wire walks, and pretended to stumble while walking on solid ground pavement. You could tell the man had a sense of humor to go with his steel nerves.
