Review: The Walk

Never forget. The Walk urges us to remember and celebrate.

Post-9/11, the Twin Towers have been a tricky proposition for filmmakers, who have either digitally deleted their appearance (as was the case in 2002's Spider-Man, Zoolander, and other films released not too long after the terrorist attacks) or, in more recent times, deployed them as a brief marker to reinforce the film's setting (Ten Thousand Saints). The towers have been drenched in a bittersweet, sacrosanct nostalgia since their destruction - their existence cannot be ignored, but lingering on them may dredge up too painful memories.

There is no escaping the towers in The Walk, director Robert Zemeckis' extraordinary tribute to the World Trade Center that is also a virtuosic recreation of Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the structures. What Zemeckis does more than anything else in this film is to restore the joy and innocence of those towers, transporting the viewers to a time, a moment, when magic overrode cynicism and when the impossible brought a city and the world together.

For those who saw James Marsh's involving 2008 documentary Man on Wire, the question of why The Walk needed to be made at all, the scrutiny of fact versus dramatic license, and the dilution of Petit's egomania may irritate. Yet Marsh's film lacked the money shot - footage of Petit's brilliant aerial feat. Zemeckis may follow a comparatively linear narrative but, whatever one thinks of the build-up, there is no denying the payoff.

The film, adapted from Petit's memoir To Reach the Clouds, first sees the scampish Petit (an emotionally and physically nimble Joseph Gordon-Levitt) perched in the Statue of Liberty's torch with the cityscape of early-'70s lower Manhattan behind him. "Why?" he asks directly to camera. "Why do I risk death?" For Petit, "to walk on the wire is life." He proceeds to narrate his tale, remembering the first time he saw a wirewalker in the circus and how, with the help of circus ringleader and former high-wire artist Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), he learned to walk the wire, feel its tension, and listen to its language.

It is love at first sight when Petit spies an illustration of the towers in a magazine article announcing their near-completion. From that moment onwards, he resolves to fulfill his dream of walking between the two towers. Zemeckis and co-screenwriter Christopher Browne chart the progression as Petit walks a tightrope that's barely a foot off the ground to one that's stretched out over a lake to one connected between the cathedral spires of Notre Dame. The filmmakers do the same with the towers, first seen as illustration then a miniature recreation then a larger-scale model before the actual towers make their genuine entrance into the tale. In this way, Zemeckis establishes height and scale and, once Petit finally encounters the towers for the first time, the act of looking up or looking down is a mindful one, not just for Petit but for the audience as well.

History, especially a tragic history, tends to smooth over certain things. Post-9/11, people forget that the buildings were viewed as ugly and utilitarian at the time of their creation and infancy. Petit's walk is credited with injecting them with character and personality, and The Walk reinforces their symbiosis. When Petit touches his chin to the base of the tower, the camera shoots up the tower's side as if to follow the life force coursing through the steel, concrete and glass. Later, as he runs down the logistics of his insane obsession with his accomplices, mentions will be made of how the cables and the buildings must work together in harmony to support Petit.

If The Walk strikes one as guileless and gee-whiz at times, it is wholly appropriate and excusable. Zemeckis wants the audience to wallow in disbelief at a time when flimsy disguises, suspicious behaviour and outright masquerade were not grounds for immediate imprisonment or accusations of terrorism. Perhaps many would argue that Petit is made to be more of a lovable, mischievous imp but the difficulties of working with a man of such uncompromising, single-minded focus are not ignored. He is reprimanded by his girlfriend Annie (the luminous Charlotte Le Bon) for not acknowledging the team's efforts. Why should I? he wonders since he is the one who will ultimately be responsible for his own fate. Yet when one of his accomplices embraces him before he takes that fateful first step, Gordon-Levitt fully conveys Petit's realisation that the dream is not his alone, but all of theirs as well.

It's near impossible not to rhapsodise over that stunning set piece as the film takes us 110 stories off the ground and places us alongside Petit as he moves one foot in front of the other on what seems to be the thinnest of wires with nothing but air between him and the city below. We may never understand Petit's motivations, but we understand the sensation of being taken into another realm. Dariusz Wolski's swooping camera magnifies the wonder of the walk as well as the ensuing absurdity of the standoff between Petit and the police at both towers. The seen-it-all New York cops can only stare helplessly and admiringly at a man whose accomplishment is beyond imagining.

Sublime and poignant, with an unexpected force of emotion, The Walk is a majestic and exhilarating ode to determination, resilience, and the beauty of remembrance.

The Walk

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis

Written by: Robert Zemeckis, Christopher Browne; adapted from Philippe Petit's memoir, To Reach the Clouds

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, Clément Sibony, James Badge Dale, Steve Valentine, César Domboy