Man On Wire

Almost every American film made since September 2001 has been probed and prodded for a post-9/11 subtext. Directed by James Marsh, The King (2005) explored the rise of the Christian right in the Bush era, with a family drama of Old Testament proportions. With Man On Wire, Marsh has crafted a documentary about the World Trade Centre that never once mentions that day the earth stood still. Instead, it focuses on Philippe Petit, a French tightrope daredevil who, in 1974, danced on a wire strung between the Twin Towers. The film mixes new interviews with archive footage, home movies and reconstructions with tremendous flair, never resorting to documentary cliché: the film is structured in flashback; interviews are shot from high angles; and the reconstructions are modelled on silent comedies and thrillers. The whole amounts to a ripping perfect crime yarn, the charismatic Petit proving an irresistible narrator whose determination mirrors that of Elvis in The King, but without the bloodshed.

Read Paul Greenwood's review of Man on Wire