A Bird? A Plane?

Man On Wire. Dir. James Marsh.

Feat. Philippe Petit (as himself).

Magnolia Pictures, 2008

Your biggest fear, is always pending. It's growth never stunts, and it's fire never burns out. It's something you've never imagined. Something that hurts to cross your mind, but it never will. Our minds come up with what they can handle, and anything beyond that idea is something we aren't allowing ourselves to believe as possible. It is not until after the fact, when we can look back and see the possibility of what could've happened, that we understand the depth and sincerity of what did happen. If today, you can look back and say that your biggest fear has become your truth, you are wrong. Our biggest fear is always something farther and greater, then what will ever happen, we cannot handle what we cannot predict. And after you survive what you believe the worst possible outcome will be, you will catch a glimpse of what could have been, and even, for a sliver of a second be grateful for this. Many days, fear stunts ambitious humans from completing what they strive to achieve. We are held back by our belief that we are not good enough, and our fear of dying. Although this is the case for many, there are a brave few that don't allow this depressing box we are put in to be our only choice.

In Man on Wire Philippe Petit is one of the people who thrives off of fear, rather than shivering away from it. The documentary shares a progressive storyline that reminisces on Philippes journey in life, learning about his own fears. Rather than running away from them he strides to reach them. Although I do not believe that everyone should walk across two extremely high skyscrapers on a thinly stretched wire (unless you put as much thought and practice into it at Petit and his friends did.) I believe everyone has a lesson to be learned from this documentary. If every single person who watched this ninety-four minute long factual movie took away one thing, I believe the overall view of it would be to do the impossible. Each person will take it differently because in our own minds we are holding ourselves back from something we are afraid of. To create the moral of the story, a person needs to watch it for themselves and take it from there.