In announcing the Audience Award for this film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Sir Sean Connery described it as one of the best three films he had seen EVER. With that heavy recommendation, I was well-primed to disagree. I'm not sure about the numbers, but it one of the best and most worth-while documentary films I have ever seen, if not the best.
The synopsis hardly impels people into the cinema. So let me tell you how it won the audience award. Into entered the chart at the top and stayed there, beating various mainstream releases scheduled for release instantly. The effect on audiences is remarkable. It touches people.
The great philosopher Wittgenstein said he went to fight on the front line, so that, as a philosopher, he could have a better comprehension of life and death. For the Frenchman in this film, it is about art. An artistic accomplishment that is serious. A high-wire walker/dancer that pictures himself as a poet, conquering beautiful stages. And from the age of seventeen his ultimate dream-stage is the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre. His passion for life is like that of the early mountaineers. An exaltation of the human spirit. A triumph of skill and daring. Life and death in the same frame. Asked why, he replies, "There is no why."
Placing a tightrope between the towers is, of course, illegal. So he plans it as carefully as a bank robbery. An interesting reflection on rules being there to be broken is cast up - but neatly parallelling the contemporaneous Watergate, we ask, to what end? Balanced along the 200 feet between the towers, a quarter of a mile from the ground, he dances back and forth eight times. We are left breathless and moist-eyed. And then he is then duly arrested and sent for psychiatric treatment (an amusing comment on how the American system can treat greatness).
Man on Wire is a beautiful film. An inspiring film. A film of a human being totally committed to his calling. And in a very small way perhaps, a crowning tribute to the magnificence of the architecture before it was destroyed.
The synopsis hardly impels people into the cinema. So let me tell you how it won the audience award. Into entered the chart at the top and stayed there, beating various mainstream releases scheduled for release instantly. The effect on audiences is remarkable. It touches people.
The great philosopher Wittgenstein said he went to fight on the front line, so that, as a philosopher, he could have a better comprehension of life and death. For the Frenchman in this film, it is about art. An artistic accomplishment that is serious. A high-wire walker/dancer that pictures himself as a poet, conquering beautiful stages. And from the age of seventeen his ultimate dream-stage is the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre. His passion for life is like that of the early mountaineers. An exaltation of the human spirit. A triumph of skill and daring. Life and death in the same frame. Asked why, he replies, "There is no why."
Placing a tightrope between the towers is, of course, illegal. So he plans it as carefully as a bank robbery. An interesting reflection on rules being there to be broken is cast up - but neatly parallelling the contemporaneous Watergate, we ask, to what end? Balanced along the 200 feet between the towers, a quarter of a mile from the ground, he dances back and forth eight times. We are left breathless and moist-eyed. And then he is then duly arrested and sent for psychiatric treatment (an amusing comment on how the American system can treat greatness).
Man on Wire is a beautiful film. An inspiring film. A film of a human being totally committed to his calling. And in a very small way perhaps, a crowning tribute to the magnificence of the architecture before it was destroyed.