How 'The Walk' is making New Yorkers fall in love with the Twin Towers all over again

Hollywood or Bollywood, I see very few movies. Maybe two or three a month. And as a journalist, I tend to gravitate towards stories snatched from the headlines.

Through my work, I go into different worlds and try to make sense of it all. I put in that same thoughtful analysis into the books I read and the movies I see.

Yesterday, I saw the movie The Walk in its vivid 3D cinematography and I was blown away by the sheer audacity of the feat and the dazzling re-creation of it on celluloid.

The Walk is the true story of the French artiste Philippe Petit, who walked across a steel cable strung between the towers of the World Trade Center on the morning of August 7, 1974. The movie takes viewers 1,368 feet above the ground and you spend 30 minutes grabbing your arm rest in white knuckled, nail biting, awed terror, not daring to move a muscle as the protagonist confidently and daringly struts the high wire with effortless ease against the blue sky. (The actual walk had taken 45 minutes with him being urged off by police on both towers).

Petit, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 34, as a French mime, a juggler and an unicyclist performing on the streets of Paris and soon he becomes a wire walker. His theatre is often interrupted by the police, who keep an eye on him, as he outdoes in himself in his high wire act across the Notre Dame Cathedral.

His feats endear them to many and he soon gathers a band of accomplices in Paris and in the United States, to fulfil his "coup" of conquering the towers.

Petit's story of the daring, gutsy, unauthorised walk was first told in his book To Reach the Clouds and retold in James Marsh's 2008 Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire.

The story is pure magical movie material and it's hard to resist. Is Petit fearless? Deranged? Delusional? Who tempts fate and invites death like that?

It's impossible is the sane logical thought and I realised that this movie refutes that. Why is it impossible? Why can't be done? Why can't you dream and do it? It's a concept that seduces you, challenges you, uplifts and inspires it.

Petit narrates the movie to the audience, perched on the torch of the Statue of Liberty with the backdrop of the Twin Towers. It betrays his eagerness to tell his story in his own words and also his anxiousness in securing the approval of the people. After all, his perspective is something you have never seen before on screen, like this. The height and the breathtaking visual of Manhattan's skyline is beyond gorgeous and yet the filmmaker keeps his camera impressively steady and level headed. And Gordon was actually taught to walk the wire by Petit himself and practised till he was able to do at 12 feet. (It's just like riding a bike, he has said in interviews).

For me, the first half of the movie was slow, even though I understand that the filmmaker was painstakingly laying out the groundwork to get to the exciting finale.

There are poignant moments of intimacy between Petit and his mentor Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), his girlfriend Annie (Charlotte Le Bonn) and his gang of plotters. There's the Mathematics professor who is afraid of heights and his official photographer. These characters add to the realism of the movie.

It has been reported that Petit's passion of the Twin Towers made New Yorkers fall in love all over again with the steel structures and it's true. I felt myself being drawn to them.

It was particularly emotional for me as I gazed at them, majestic in their glory, and I was nostalgic for the time of innocence that existed before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

This movie becomes more than just Petit's quest. It emerges as his life's message to all artists. It becomes his soliloquy to the world as he fights his demons of insecurity, self-doubt and fears. He never loses his focus. Like Arjuna in the Mahabharata, Petit only sees the wire, no ground underneath, no sky above, no gaping audience beneath and no inhibitions, no rules, no laws it's just him and the wire.

In a way, all of us artistes are all high-wire walkers. We spend months or years preparing our "products" and we only have a few minutes to present it to the world. It takes guts, its focus, its takes self-confidence and some tangible things, like faith, like instinct, inborn skill and talent. You have to be brazen, you have to bold and you just have to do it.

For me, the most emotional moment in the movie is when Petit drops to his knees on the high wire and salutes first the sky, then the audience and lastly "the great city of New York."

Just like Petit defies gravity, this movie defies being cheap, gimmicky and even the premise is a tall tale, it ends up becoming a huge story with a big heart. All while being discreetly and quietly emotional.

It gives you this gift of believing like those crazy ideas, those half-baked thoughts, those things you didn't dare to follow through, it might just be possible to try them at least. You never know? Anything's possible.

Need more proof? How about this? This is my first film review. I have never attempted this before but after Petit's high wire act, my heart whispers to me, "Try it". I give this movie ****1/2 stars.