![Man On Wire](http://heavy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/man_on_wire.jpg)
One of the best films of 2008 (documentary or otherwise) and a bittersweet valentine to a now long-gone New York City, Man on Wire chronicles one of the most poignant, dangerous and downright beautiful daredevil acts ever performed: Philippe Petit’s nearly one-hour high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. Based on Petit’s book, To Reach the Clouds, Man on Wire (which takes its title from the police report that led to Petit’s arrest) is structured and presented like a heist movie, with director James Marsh mixing footage of the actual preparations for the event and still photographs of the walk alongside reenactments (with Paul McGill as Petit) and present-day interviews with the participants. The end result is just as strange and breathtaking as the actual event must have been, both for the man who performed it and the people who watched him; the fact that the later destruction of the Towers is never mentioned in the film makes it feel all the more like an optimistic and innocent snapshot from the past, a “memory play” that celebrates a man with balls the size of the very city that inspired him. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; it’s also currently the best-reviewed movie on Rotten Tomatoes, scoring a 100% rating from a collected 145 reviews.
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New On Netflix: Man On Wire