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'Man On Wire'

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BY RAFER GUZMÁN | rafer.guzman@newsday.com

August 8, 2008

Philippe Petit may be the only high-wire walker in history famous enough to have groupies. In 1974, the French street performer enlisted the help of several friends and random oddballs to undertake a death-defying and completely illegal stunt: walking between the quarter-mile-high World Trade Center towers. Petit's performance - part prank, part personal obsession and wholly a work of beauty - briefly made him a celebrity and forever connected him to the buildings that met their doom on 9/11.

In the gripping documentary " Man on Wire," which takes its name from the report filed after Petit's arrest, director James Marsh delves into the years-long planning that went into the 45-minute walk. Using interviews with Petit (an expressive storyteller and born ham) and his accomplices, plus several subtly enacted dramatizations, Marsh turns his film into a nail-biting heist flick, though this time the criminals are artists. Armed with fake Ids, a delivery van, bogus invoices and even an "inside man" with access to an office, Petit and his cohorts head to the tops of both towers, rig up a cable using a bow and arrow (!) and, luckily for everyone, commit performance art rather than terrorism.

The film's soaring climax becomes surprisingly emotional thanks to testimony from those lucky enough to have witnessed it. Even the police sergeant dispatched to the scene seemed moved. In a news conference, he hesitates to describe Petit as a mere tightrope walker. A better term, he decides, is "tightrope dancer."

(PG-13)

PLOT A French street performer makes history with an illegal high-wire walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974.

CAST Philippe Petit, Jean-Louis Blondeau, Annie Allix

LENGTH 1:34

PLAYING AT Cinema Arts Centre, Huntington; Malverne Cinemas; Manhasset Cinemas

BOTTOM LINE A gripping documentary with the fast pacing of a crime flick and a breathtaking climax.