The skyscraper Merdeka 118, in Kuala Lumpur, is so named because of the number of storeys it has – and that’s not to reckon with the 160 metre spire on top, which would, by itself, be lethal to fall off 10 times over. Fully completed only last year, it’s the tallest building in Southeast Asia.
Scaling the whole thing is something few would dream of attempting, but that’s the illegal challenge a Russian couple, Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, set themselves in 2022, when the building was at its full height, but still internally under construction.
The Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story retells the saga of this duo’s “rooftopping” stunts up to that point, and climaxes with the night they gave it a shot. Both carry their own GoPro cameras, so a lot of the footage we get – of this particular climb, and all their others – is self-filmed.
This is the really hairy stuff, of them inching up cranes in windy conditions, or leaning off sky-high platforms with selfie sticks. Supplementing the footage is more high-def photography by the experienced filmmaking team led by director Jeff Zimbalist. It makes for a giddy aesthetic experience, with the busy carpet of various cities spinning far below – all more than enough to make Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo turn green and need a lie-down.
If Skywalkers allied its visuals to a framing narrative that wasn’t basic as hell, we’d be getting somewhere. It convinces you on some fundamental level that these two are made for each other, but only because their obsessions are the same, and have a lot to do with social media cachet, rather than the summitting of these structures as a goal in itself. If they haven’t filmed themselves punching the air up there – or in Angela’s case, performing circus routines – did it really happen?
Without meaning to, Skywalkers captures a dispiriting aspect of the here and now, in which every feat must be mediated to sustain sponsorship deals, and indeed, whole livelihoods. Fleeting pauses to half question the sanity of this are generally swept aside by euphoric celebrations.
This pair may have picked a singularly dangerous path to fame, but Zimbalist’s way of punching up their successes (and slumps) makes rooftopping feel exactly like any other extreme sport.
If adrenaline, Instagram likes, and an intense concern for each other’s safety have kept this relationship alive, don’t expect the implications of all that to be grasped in much depth. On their own, these two might simply come across as narcissists with a death wish, so the film ruthlessly weds itself to the USP of them being in love – like a slick Cupid locking down a Netflix deal.
On Netflix from July 19
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