Viraj's Weblog

I have to agree with Ebert on this one and say this movie is just absolutely wonderful. I didn't think such a story could be told without coming across as drab, but the way this movie is put together is a great achievement in filmmaking, not to say anything about the actual storyline. And there is a storyline, and it's portrayed better than most fictional heist movies.

But the main attraction is the characters themselves, and Philippe Petit is of course the star. Even at his late age, he comes across more lively than most children, and it is very infectious (however some may find it annoying). You have to really have a mind like a child to find him interesting, and that is a compliment. These type of people are very infectious, and they embody the human spirit in their achievement.

The movie is about a man attempting to walk a tightrope across the World Trace Center towers and essentially the buildup to that event. When it happens the audience is thrilled, and silent. The movie surreptitiously compares the tightrope to life itself, and how me must all walk on our own tightropes. I always found the act of living similar to walking on a tightrope. At any moment we can be knocked off. One small puncture through a few millimeters of our skin, one wrong turn on the highway, one small step, and we are tumbling down. As we age, it becomes more difficult to stay on the tightrope, and eventually no matter how much we try we can't stay on and finally drop off. The movie conveys this fact, and you appreciate life more coming out of the theater.

There is an amazing scene in the movie depicting the careful moments late in the evening as they prepare to string a wire across the World Trade Center towers. The cinematography here is just amazing. They are racing against time, and time is depicted as the rotating stars in the heavens and the lighthouse-like light at the top of the tower pulsating like a heartbeat. Meanwhile, in the front of the scene you see the silhouette of the characters hard at work trying to beat the morning light. It is really breathtaking and I don't even know how to explain it, but it captured everything the scene needed to convey.

I also found fascinatingly nostalgic the scenes of the actual building of the WTC towers. With the thought of them gone now, it really puts it into perspective just how much work was done building them and the human efforts made to create such tall structures. I found those scenes very somber and sad, to see all that hard work come crumbling down. But it also reminded me of the impermanence of everything, and just because we put so much effort into creating something, it will definitely not last forever.

The moral is you are on the rope whether you like it or not. Why not enjoy yourself and realize the magnificence of it all?