Film review: The Walk
He knew it was impossible, but he decided to do it nonetheless. The story of Philippe Petit, the French tightrope walker who crossed the abyss between New York City’s nearly completed World Trade Center towers in the summer of 1974, was the focus of the thrilling 2008 documentary, Man on Wire. Now, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead as the quirky but determined artist who cheated death (a word, by the way, he says he never utters out of fear it would remind him of the risk his work entails), Robert Zemeckis’s The Walk gives elegant contours to the real-life tale that is almost too incredible to be true.
Our guide to this story is Petit himself, who appears on top of the Statue of Liberty and breaks the fourth wall to address the viewer directly from time to time. The purpose of this narrative strategy is unclear, as it goes against the film’s well-conceived immersive qualities, and while Gordon-Levitt is entirely convincing as a Frenchman speaking English (and even, at times, as one who speaks French), it would have been much more compelling had it been the real-life Petit speaking to us.
For the full movie review of The Walk, please visit The Prague Post.
The Walk is on circuit at major cinemas in Bulgaria, under the title Живот на ръба. In English with Bulgarian subtitles.
