Puke Skywalkers

I am a worrier. Before leaving the flat, I have to check the oven is off three times. Just to make sure I don’t burn the block down, turning my neighbours - many of which children - into flaming hunks of gristle in the process. Then I have to make sure my front door is locked, giving it not one, not two, but three hard shoves. So a prospective robber doesn’t wander in and steal all my stuff. And perhaps most pathologically, I shower with the bathroom door unlocked. Because if I fall and hit my head, my housemates can discover and save me somehow without needing to kick the door down. Thoughtful of me, ain’t it? 

A bit much? Maybe. But all stems from rational fears, fears of my own and others’ mortality. And my stuff getting nicked. 

What better way to mitigate these fears than watching maniacs dangle from rooftops? And we’re not talking your nan’s bungalow rooftop. We’re talking in the tens, sometimes hundred-storey+ building rooftops. Like I said, maniacs.

‘Skywalkers: A Love Story’ is the new palm-sweater from Netflix. A documentary film about a duo of nut-bars called Angela and Ivan who perform Icarus-like ascents towards the sun. But in lieu of waxy wings - despite the former’s angelic name - tummy-turningly tall buildings are their sky delivery systems. But the greatest highs and lows lie in the couple’s relationship, who put Ross and Rachel to shame in the will-they-won’t-they factor. 

Let’s start with the most interesting of the pair: the offensively attractive Angela, who can be compared to superhero sidekick Robin. Raised in a family of acrobats, but without the melodramatic bereavement sub-plot. Far more boring than that, her father left when she was young. In an effort to continue the legacy of strong, independent - possibly insane - women in her family, she photographs herself assuming pretzel-like shapes on the ledges of modestly-sized churches, towers, office blocks. Risking - at the very least - broken limbs. At the most, certain death. As she works up the courage to scale greater heights, she falls into an online community of death-defiers, where she meets Ivan. A wounded-dog of a man from a broken home who metaphorically screams “fuck you, mum and dad” from the highest heights imaginable. The Batman to her Robin, you could say. In that he has sex with her on the reg. Right in the Bat Cave. 

And so burgeons their romance as they prepare to climb the 118-storey Merdeka in Kuala Lumpar: a building so tall, even Spider-Man would say “bit high for me, mate.” 

Superhero comparisons - and superhuman feats - aside, make no mistake. This isn’t a superhero film. Nor is it, as the title suggests, a love story. This is a horror film. Best watched through quivering fingers, perhaps even better to look away from the perilous heights this mad pair are compelled to climb. Sometimes, Angela and Ivan lean over ledges of their latest conquest, their go-pros showing first person viewpoints of the precipitous drops before them. Going so far as to cock one leg, raising their climbing-inappropriate sneakers ever closer to the God they taunt. I found myself wondering when a divine intervention was nigh. A deity’s digit descends from the sky and prods a precarious percher, sending their helpless form hurtling off a snow-covered tower, towards their asphalt fate. Or - during one of their 14 hour pre-climb hide-from-security games - a particularly cruel God could arrange for a building worker to drill through their hidey-hole’s wall, into their skulls. Wishful thinking? Not exactly. The documentary merely made me fear for their lives in most situations they find themselves in. And rightly so. The film even illustrates the risks involved. Angela watches gut-wrenching videos of contemporaries falling to their deaths. Despite this, she fails to heed these ominous signs her fate could lead a similar way. 

Aside from the health and safety risks involved, there are legal risks. In order to climb such precipitous buildings, they break and enter into places. Meaning they find themselves on the wrong side of the law, and end up running from security guards and local law enforcement. Ivan and Angela often defend their right to climb by saying “it may be illegal, but we’re not hurting anyone.” Yeah, right. Tell that to the bereaved loved ones of people you’ve fallen on. Or the child you traumatised for life when you exploded like a blood bag on the pavement. Except you couldn’t, because you’d be dead. This is what I go back to again and again when people say they “feel alive” doing stuff like this: they won’t feel alive for much longer.

Either way, if cinema is a machine for empathy, the film made me feel abject cack-my-pants fear for the subjects. I’m just not convinced they feel the same way. 

The film is certainly gripping. For a bit. After the first five climbs, I found myself desensitised to the danger. And this was way before the pair rise to their final challenge. Which makes the finale fall a bit short of spectacular. Especially after the melodramatic moment in which the pair break-up. When Angela sustains an injury, she blames it on the overbearing Ivan who takes on the role of parent to his moody-teen girlfriend. 

“I won’t let you go (to Merdeka) until you heal properly and we train thoroughly,” says Ivan.

“‘You won’t let me?’ Are you my parent?”

“What do you want, Angela? You won’t let me care for you.”

“It’s not caring for me, it’s limiting me.”

An interstitial segment follows in which the pair go their separate ways. Ivan runs moodily through the rain in a BTEC-Rocky montage.

Meanwhile, Angela has a scene in which she goes home and watches an acrobat show. She begins to realise that without Ivan, climbing means nothing to her. The climbers reunite shortly after. After a bit of floor-staring, the pair get to talking. They soon decide to get back together. 

This section feels like an opportunity for the pair to say generic “you fall, I’ll catch you” platitudes to one another, which made my toes curl like in the vertical scenes. And turned my stomach twice as much. Whether or not this was a genuine moment or some artistic interference from the filmmakers, it comes off as contrived, and pulled me out of the film.

After this unfortunately cliched and overly-saccharine moment, the film can go only one way: up. Great news for Angela and Ivan; bad news for the film - whose final act is left without tension. 

May I suggest an alternative cut? In which the pair reunite, soaring music plays as Angela cries “it’s all pointless without you”, and it starts to rain as the pair kiss. Cut to black. A title card fades up: “Ivan and Angela died moments after in an unfortunate wasp incident.” 

Better still, just cut the making-up scene out. That way, as far as we’re concerned, the couple remains resentful and mistrustful of one another. They go straight from the argument to climbing Merdeka. It would add some tension. Perhaps Ivan and Angela are in the wrong mental headspace for the climb. You could even manipulate soundbites of each expressing concern. Then when they finally reach the top, have at it with the I-love-yous. Go mad with it. Hell, have Ivan propose to Angela on the tip of Merdeka for all I care. Who knows? Maybe I would even cry tears of joy. It could have been such a dramatic high - they made it despite the odds. 

But I didn’t cry. I was just waiting for it to finish.

While it may seem like I’m suggesting manipulation of the events, I should point out that every documentary is manipulated. Everything you see in documentaries is thousands of hours of footage compiled and hacked and chopped into a digestible story. A documentary is inherently manipulative, adding music, soundbites, cutaways, and other creative flourishes to create drama that wasn’t necessarily there before. Which I’m absolutely fine with. It comes with the territory of filmmaking and storytelling. I just didn’t agree with the  choices that went into the final product, specifically this coming apart-then-making-amends moment. But this was just a small part of an otherwise pretty spectacular film.

While not perfect, ‘Skywalkers: A Love Story’ has plenty to keep you engaged. And desensitising me to heights is no bad thing. Now my former fears don’t seem so scary anymore. I think I’ll take a shower with the bathroom door locked. Then, if I survive, I’ll go out and leave the front door open. 

With the oven turned on.