A Movie for the Quixotic

Anybody who's ever had a big crazy ass dream needs to run, not walk, to see the new documentary "Man on Wire". It's the story of Philippe Pettit's 1973 wirewalk between the two towers of the World Trade Center. Part heist story, part portrait of an artist, it's a gripping film that's near impossible to watch without accompanying jaw dropping.

Fascinated as a teen by the mere of idea of the towers, Pettit once defaced a magazine in a doctor's office by drawing a wire between the two towers, with himself on it. He then spent years of his life preparing as the towers rose an ocean away (beautifully portrayed in split screen in the movie). The band of people who helped him, an international motley crew if ever there was one, are all heard from and represented in tastefully done recreations. One of the most striking things to me was the footage postwalk that showed all the reporters asking the same question, "Why?" But lest you despair of prosiac Americans consider the Port Authority cop who helped bring Pettit down from the clouds (and whose dry report gives the film it's title-complaint? "Man on Wire"). When interviewed by reporters he said, "You can't call that walking, you can't call that anything but dancing."

Despite the inherent crazy joy of the story it is, of course, shot through with post 9/11 sadness. To see the towers at the beginning of their lives, rising up, can't help but remind Americans of other, darker days. The film is not about that and so doesn't go there but I felt it was an unanswered question. I, for one, would love to hear Philippe's 9/11 story. If there's a foreigner as outraged as we, it would have to be him for he saw and experienced the towers as no other human did.