Realising a magnificent obsession

HIGH-WIRE artist Philippe Petit had a magnificent obsession to walk the airspace between the two towers of New York's World Trade Center and pull off "the artistic coup of the century". In The Walk, director Robert Zemeckis chronicles Petit's absurd, audacious attempt to realise that dream, in the process placing us in the shoes of a man whose version of terra firma was a narrow steel cable high in the sky.

Zemeckis, a consummate dream weaver and special effects pioneer whose films include the Back to the Future trilogy, Forrest Gump and Cast Away, knows how to affect audiences with a dose of 3D magic. The up-in-the-air moments in The Walk are simply stunning and despite the fact that Petit's story was told in th…