Man on Wire (12a)

Aug 4 2008 By Roz Laws

****

It's an odd time to make this film now, 34 years after the event and seven years after the World Trade Center was destroyed.

But it’s still a fascinating documentary, although maybe a little drawn out. It might have found a better home as an hour-long TV programme.

It tells the true story of Philippe Petit and his extraordinarily daring bid in 1974 to walk 200 feet across a wire strung between New York’s Twin Towers, 104 storeys up, with no safety net.

He plans the illegal stunt like an elaborate heist, with detailed preparations and an inside man to help him sneak into the towers.

There’s plenty of build-up to the main event, with interviews, interesting archive footage of the towers being built and shots of Petit’s other escapades at Notre Dame and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

It’s not until a good hour has passed that he finally steps out (in flares, no less) on the wire in New York – and you’ll be holding your breath.

“If I die, what a beautiful death!” he cries. “To die in the exercise of your passion.”