NETFLIX INSTANT REVIEW: Man On Wire
I, like many of you (I hope), have a Netflix account. And as we should all know, Netflix now has a Watch Instantly feature where they have a catalog of films that you are able to stream to your computer (or if you are like me, an Xbox 360). I decided to start a column watching films from their queue that I have yet to see and will provide a review for the film. I will be seeing a variety of films, anything from old, new, obscure, famous, or just about any film, as long as I haven’t seen it.
As film nerds and buffs, we encounter many beautiful films. They can be either beautiful-looking films or beautifully acted films, but some quality of it will move us to such a particular degree that we can’t help but think, “Man, that’s beautiful.”
Man on Wire
I was a teenager living in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley when the 9/11 attacks happened. So that cross-country distance and their destruction in Michael Bay-esque fashion can give you an idea of what those towers mean to me: just some tall buildings that were used as a target for attack. I was skeptical of James Marsh’s claim that this film is not about the attacks and would not be mentioned – how can you not? And I thought I called his bullshit when after the title card, we see the image of an empty WTC lot.
“HEY! It’s that lot Spike Lee used in 25th Hour to shove a point in our faces!”
Then I realized it was old stock footage and it was actually the beginning of the construction of the World Trade Center towers. And you see more stock footage of this massive construction site and the sheer scale it took to build these amazing marvels. It was the greatest way to start a movie like this and pretty much captures the spirit of the movie. This is not about the towers’ destruction; it is about rebuilding them again and trying to recapture the sheer beauty that these towers represented.
Our film’s hero is Philippe Petit, a wirewalker. This man would string a wire across famous buildings such as the Notre Dame and fucking walk across. “Wire walking is framed by death so you have to take it very seriously” remarks Petit. According to Petit, he saw a picture of those buildings and said he must wire walk across them. And so begins the story.
The movie is framed as a heist movie and it fits perfectly well since the plan they are going to carry out is not exactly legal. We see the planning, the practice, the inside men and the outside men discussing how this plan shall unfold. Add to that the black and white reenactments of the plan being carried out, and the film flows gracefully. We come into the film knowing that Petit pulled off the stunt successfully (it’s even on the film’s poster) and it doesn’t try to hide that fact, but it is the how, the meticulous method, that keeps you going. The movie keeps you within its clutches the whole time anxiously awaiting for Petit to complete his eventual goal.
What helps build up this movie is the danger of it all. There are amazing photographs of Petit and his accomplices when they are at the top of the tower and you realize and are amazed at just how small you feel. You see these hulking structures and while you say to yourself, “No fucking way,” you hear Petit casually talk about waiting for the day that he is going to walk across that gaping chasm. This is a man who quite literally conquered the towers.
Petit’s enthusiasm is beautiful, and we see how it affects, for better or worse, those closest to him; we see how it affects the New Yorkers who watched it then and how it affects you watching now. Most documentaries will make you feel little and small as they describe horrible tragedies from across the globe. Seeing Philippe Petit against those towers, a speck against the behemoth backdrop, and witnessing how a person so small can conquer something that big, well, you just might come out feeling not only inspired, but moved – by the sheer beauty of it all.
