MAN ON WIRE: The Greatest of Ease

Director: James Marsh
Writer: Philippe Petit (book)
Cast: Philippe Petit, Paul McGill
Runtime: 94 mins.
2008

In preparation for this weekend's release of The Walk, a fictional dramatization of Philippe Petit's dangerous and illegal highwire performance between the two towers of the World Trade Center, I took a look at the 2008 documentary about this very subject. This marks the first time I've reviewed a documentary on Post-Credit Coda. I don't watch very many documentaries, and I tend to shy away from nonfiction in general. The tang of "truthfulness" that documentaries advertise has little appeal for me. I understand the draw of finding out about things that historically happened in the world, but the way I see it all stories are based in truth, whether they historically happened or not. Fiction only resonates with us because on some level it could have happened, so fiction can share the same types of truths about reality that nonfiction can.

That being said, nonfiction affords us an opportunity to share in a cultural legacy, and in my previous paragraph I vastly underplay the importance of memorializing human accomplishments. The tricky thing about documentaries, though, is that we need to adjust our critical and ethical standards. Rather than simply reviewing the quality of the narrative and craft, must we also be critical of the veracity and evenhandedness with which the film treats its material? On the other side of the spectrum, need we be more allowing for plot holes and imperfect arcs since that is often the way real life events play out?

Luckily, Man on Wire throws me a softball for my first nonfiction review; the film is structured like a heist movie. The narrative lens zips back and forth between interviews with Philippe + co., and dramatized reenactments featuring actors playing younger versions. The interviews are compelling, and the dramatizations are so convincing that your first impulse will be to wonder how they got all this old footage. I can see people getting through the entire movie without realizing they're watching actors instead of old videos.

Like many heist movies do, Man on Wire begins en media res, showing the first part of the infiltration of the World Trade Center. Yes, Philippe and his friends actually have to adopt false identities and smuggle equipment into the World Trade Center, because everything about what they're doing is illegal as all hell. En media res can be a cheap technique used to desperately grab an audience's attention when a movie believes the exposition itself won't cut it.* To steal the wisdom of Rick and Morty, "I feel like, you know, we should start our stories where they begin, not start them where they get interesting." I can forgive Man on Wire this for two reasons. One is that Philippe's obsession with the Towers warps the whole narrative, such that it makes sense the movie would begin and end there. The second is that this is a fairly atypical documentary, and the best way to let the audience know they won't be watching a dusty old retelling is to throw them into the infiltration sequence right away.

*An oft-cited exception to this is Breaking Bad, a show that used en media res to disorient or build false assumptions rather than to titillate.

The editing back and forth between interviews and dramatizations is snazzy and seamless. Man on Wire is an all-around well-made movie that sweeps us along the narrative of this peculiar man's life with the greatest of ease. When it comes down to it, though, the success or failure of this movie rests entirely on the back of Philippe.

Thankfully the man is fascinating. His cohorts not so much, I had a hard time keeping them all apart. That only serves to illustrate how much more interesting Philippe is than the interesting people he surrounds himself with. In one sense the movie is about the thrill of the break-in and the walk, but above all I find Man on Wire to be about the human spirit, and the passion that will drive a man to commit an act so ridiculously dangerous and unnecessary that he may be branded certifiably insane by the American public and their judicial system. The movie picks at this thread, indulging its audience's desire to know why by constantly forcing Philippe to confront that question, and his answer is always the same. It's not about why. It's about what is possible. Wirewalking is Philippe's art, and he spent most of his life working towards what he saw as the ultimate culmination of that art form. It's hard to argue with him; I can't think of anywhere on earth with two structures of equal height so close to each other and so high off the ground.

Since Man on Wire stylizes itself as an action thriller, it has a hard time maintaining the tension required of such films. At its heart it is a story of philosophical triumph (or perhaps madness?) that is occasionally obscured by some of the flashier, more entertainment-driven choices the movie makes. I doubt Philippe would want it any other way, though.

3.5 / 5  BLOBS

Post-Script: Someone mentioned to me that they thought it strange that the movie, released in 2008, made no mention of the terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Centers. They said they would have liked to have heard Philippe's reaction. I think the movie makes the right choice. By setting its entire narrative around these buildings, even going so far as to show their construction, director James Marsh knows that 9/11 will always be in the back of his audience's collective head. There's absolutely no need to point it out. It casts a bittersweet tinge over the entire movie. Maybe it's better that we don't know Philippe's thoughts on the matter--whether he sees it as a fitting conclusion to his masterpiece, or a desecration of it. When it comes down to it, his story and 9/11 have little to do with each other, beyond a potential grand philosophical connection that is not this story's place to put forward.