Documentary Review: Man on Wire

A few nights ago,I watched the documentary "Man on Wire" directed by James Marsh. It was a fascinating movie about high walker, Philippe Petit's journey which led him to walk across the twin towers. The movie captures the long years of preparation for only about 45 minutes of routine on the wire.
It really showed how determined Phillipe Petit was to complete his dream, he knew it was illegal and extremely dangerous, but he wouldn't give up.  From the time he saw an article in a magazine about two huge towers in NYC being built, he was determined to walk between them. He encountered many obstacles. For example, he and a few other people had to rig the wire in complete darkness with high winds and in only a few hours. His friends told him to give up, it's impossible to rig this in such a short time,but Phillip didn't give up. And finally it was a majestic moment when he walked across the wire between the towers.

I really liked that is it had a lot of different footage and it kept cutting back and forth between all of them. It had archival footage of the building of the World trade Center,present day Interview of Petit and all the other people involved, reenactments by a different actor who played young Petit which portrayed the preparation and ideo and still images of the performance between the Twin Towers. All these different shots made the documentary seem so much more real.

I enjoyed how they would cut back and forth between shots of the preparation of the performance ( practicing, discussing how they'll do it) and sneaking up to the top of twin towers.

The filming was great because it made it seem like an older film. In particular the reanactment scenes, were either in black and white or had a color tone that is used in many old movies.

I barely noticed the music in the movie. I found it odd because it used calming, soft music even in the more exciting parts like the walking between the towers.However,it somehow worked.

I really enjoyed the movie, it was was well told, creating a lot of suspense. I defiantly recommend this movie.


Here is the trailer for "Man on Wire":