"Man on Wire"

Man on Wire is a 2008 documentary about the Frenchman Philippe Petit who in August 1974 walked on a high wire strung between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Apart from the obvious dangers of such an act, it was a most daring escapade - it was not officially approved and had to be pulled off almost in the manner of a bank heist.

Philippe had set his sights on walking between the towers pretty much from the moment the plans for the towers were announced - almost seeing it as his destiny to do so. He had already pulled off some spectacular high wire acts before - between the towers of the Notre Dame in Paris, across the top of the Sydney harbor bridge, etc, but walking between the WTC towers was unparalleled in scope and scale. First there was the meticulous planning for stringing a cable across the two towers that were 140'apart and 110 (more than 1000') stories high. Then there was the small matter of doing all this in secrecy - they had to sneak in with almost a ton of equipment (the cable alone weighed 450 lbs, the balancing pole another 55) and setup on the roofs with nobody catching them. It helped that the towers were not actually finished and there were no occupants above the 86th floor. This part of the story is itself so incredible and to Petit was far more challenging than the walk itself. There are numerous near misses and it is a near miracle that Philippe gets to step on to the wire at all. But step he does and in glorious fashion: He is on the wire for 45 minutes completing 8 crossings in all. In between he lay down, genuflected, and ended the walk by running across.

The documentary, which is based on Petit's 2002 book "To Reach the Clouds" tells the story of the planning, execution, and aftermath of the walk through interviews, actual footage of the walk, and staged recreations of several key moments. All the key people are interviewed and the recreations often bring home the point very effectively. He and his friends were obviously arrested after the performance, but were unconditionally pardoned and Petit was even given a life time pass to the observation deck of the WTC. Indeed, his high wire act is credited with popularizing the towers themselves which at the time were not well liked and struggling to find tenants. His instant fame brought him plenty of offers for movies, book deals, and endorsements, but he declined them all. He settled down in New York and makes his living by doing a few paid, high wire acts each year.

The documentary won a number of awards last year and is nominated for an Oscar. It is an extraordinary story - what drives a man to such extremes? It takes an effort of will to even grasp the enormity of the challenge, let alone understand it. In the documentary, he summarizes his philosophy of life thus - to push all boundaries and challenge all conventions. At which point, all of life becomes a high wire act.

The police sergeant who was dispatched to get him down from the wire said later on how he just had to stand by and watch and he realized that he was seeing something that nobody before had seen and that nobody in the future is likely to witness. They sound particularly prophetic today, given that the towers no longer stand.