‘The Walk’ is a thrilling and unnerving high-wire act
‘The Walk’ is a thrilling and unnerving high-wire act
Right before going to sleep tonight, imagine that instead of lying in bed, you’re balanced on a thick cable, over a 1,350-foot drop.
If just the thought of this makes the back of your legs tingle, then get ready for the exquisite agony of “The Walk.”
The film re-creates the high-wire walk between the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center by Philippe Petit in 1974.
The 24-year-old French aerialist had planned the crossing for as long as eight years, and once he made it to the other side, he decided he liked it so much that he went back out for a total of 45 minutes.
Petit’s feat was the subject of an excellent documentary, “Man on Wire” (2008), but here’s the thing about documentaries:
[...] I’ll just say it: I don’t think I’ve ever been more physically affected by a movie.
In one of the key moments, Petit has one foot on the building and the other on the wire, and the space in between the buildings is covered in clouds.
[...] Petit was in more danger before he stepped out onto the wire.
Incidentally, the movie becomes a memoir of the 1970s, a time at once more innocent and yet more daring, less fearful about breaking rules.
The towers are re-created, and Gordon-Levitt really does seem to be 110 stories off the ground.