The fact that Philippe Petit actually walked on a wire for an hour, 1350 feet above the ground is unfathomable enough, but how they had to engineer the tightrope system, get all the materials on site, and rig everything up without detection made it all the more mind-boggling.
Myself being someone who isn't fond of heights, it is inconceivable that any human being would be able to do what Petit did. An amazing and insane accomplishment, for certain.
On the other hand, there was plenty to be creeped out by. Petit had his friends wrapped around his little finger. Everything was geared to his success in fulfilling his dream. It reminded me of the hangers-on that Billy Mitchell used in the documentary "King Of Kong".
This is fine, I don’t think it needs to be held in much higher regard than The Walk. It benefits from everything being so cinematic and well documented, watching Phillipe do his thing never gets old. I enjoyed how it delves into the process, even if I wanted it to be more critical of the main character and all of the difficulties/challenges/potential consequences involved in pulling this off. The tone of the documentary leans towards the celebratory side and that doesn’t always bring out the most tension. There’s also a sense of theatricality to the storytelling (narration, reconstruction, music) that I don’t think serves the material. It’s still a fine watch, but once you get past the initial shock and awe there’s something empty about it.
6/10
Well, I got to say that the ending part left me with not a a very positive view of the main person. Nevertheless, great achievement.
Philippe Petit, a self-taught French highwire artist, falls in love with the unfinished World Trade Center towers and daydreams of walking the cloud-level span between them. Together with an international band of comrades, girlfriends and stoners, he perfects his craft, tests his will on lesser structures, invents a disguise to access the buildings and touches heaven during an unauthorized fifty-minute balancing act, far above the bustling morning sidewalk commute.
There's a sense of faded liberty and wild west potential to this caper, the kind of thing that couldn't possibly happen in today's world of digital surveillance and trigger-happy security. Here's a man from the other end of the world, inspired by a puff piece in the paper, who managed to accomplish a lunatic notion by employing persistence, elbow grease and a few flimsy counterfeit work orders. His is a tale of DIY wonder, if a little inflated and aggrandized by the telling. In the absence of archival footage (a few stunning photographs provide the only record of his feat), we're left to gape over TV grade re-enactments and breathless recollections from a number of winking, grinning sources. It's a fantastical story, but the lack of footage is disappointing, and Petit's voiceover sometimes feels a little on the unreliable side. He is, after all, a born showman.
Based on the memoir of Philippe Petit, Man on Wire tells the extraordinary story of one of the most daring artistic coups of the 20th century. In this documentary Petit and his team recount their 1974 exploit of rigging a high-wire between the World Trade Center towers (still under construction at the time) in order for Petit to give a wire walking performance. In addition to the interviews, original footage and re-enactments are used to help complete the story; showing how the team planned and trained for the event (infiltrating construction crews, building scale models, etc.). However, the filmmakers don’t explore the larger context; i.e. the impact that the event had. Still, Man on Wire is a remarkably compelling look at a feat of incredible ingenuity and audacity.
La historia es interesante sin embargo resulta ser lo más irrelevante del documental si no estás inclinado por el tema que lo rodea (equilibrismo) pero la ejecución de éste y todo lo que trata de decir lo hacen verdaderamente emocionante y en términos generales muy inspirador.
Most amazing documentary I've ever seen. Had me on the wire the entire time!
This guy is a baguette short of a picnic.
Shout by iliumBlockedParent2013-12-28T12:34:20Z
Great documentary about a guy suffering from an acute iron aggregation in his testicles.