They SAY that seeing is believing, but "Man on Wire" will make you doubt what your eyes are telling you -- it really will -- as you shake your head in amazement and awe.
A rare double winner of both Sundance's jury prize and its audience award for world documentary, this exhilarating film treats French aerialist Philippe Petit's Aug. 7, 1974, walk between the twin towers of New York's 110-story World Trade Center as if it were a daring bank robbery. This is a police procedural, if you will, about what's been called the artistic crime of the century.
Made by director James Marsh with the human interest of a psychological drama and the "You Are There" factor of a classic doc as well as the pace of a thriller, "Man on Wire" underlines the fact that often the events most worth investigating are the ones we think we already know everything about.
That would be Petit's 45-minute frolic on a cable stretched the 200 feet between those looming towers, which stood 1,350 feet above the ground. The 24-year-old Frenchman crossed the distance eight times and enjoyed himself so thoroughly up there that the New York City policeman who eventually arrested him called him a "tightrope dancer" and accurately noted: "I personally figured I was watching something somebody else would never see again in the world."
Though the hubbub and good will around Petit's exploit was immense -- President Nixon resigned two days later and when he boarded his helicopter he said, "I wish I had the publicity that Frenchman had" -- it turns out that the story behind the walk is much more complicated and involving than anyone knew at the time.
British-born filmmaker Marsh, impressively assisted by editor Jinx Godfrey, has deftly woven several strands of material together. There is heart-stopping documentary footage of Petit's earlier walks in Paris and Sydney, astonishing photographs of his unfilmed jaunt across the towers, deftly done dramatic re-creations of behind-the-scenes events as well as interviews with the aerialist's support team, an unlikely group of individuals who are flabbergasted to this day at what they pulled off.
Best of all is Petit himself, who turns out to be a dream subject for a documentary. Intensely dramatic and formidably articulate, he vividly relives every aspect of his moment in history as if it were yesterday. "My story is a fairy tale," he baldly announces, and then proceeds to prove it.
