If London could fling a life-sized doll of their revered Queen from the roof for Mr Bean-guided laughs at the 2012 Olympics, surely Paris could make guffawing at royalty more risqué at the 2024 Games.
So, a building full of show-windows at multiple levels saw headless women decked in red, as the Paris opening ceremony expanded on its liberté segment, with a dancing recall of their own reviled queen, Marie Antionette.
The Paris Games Opening Ceremony was as immersive as it could get. And as all things artsy go, they left it to the viewer to interpret this vaudeville reminder of the guillotined royal.
Paris did not seek to instruct, educate or 3-D lecture on their history, or walk a single line of any one theme. Instead, they bombarded senses (there’s also postal stamps with aromas of a baguette) with restless colour and unstoppable movement. There was song and dance and a hint of mystery, with the same vibe as when Hawkeye, after his arrow misses the target, tells Iron Man, “made you look.” Paris made the world look.
There was the hooded masked torch-bearer, who took over from the universally adored Zinedine Zidane in a metro, rowing the flame past stacked-skulled catacombs. The identity of the masked character remained a constant buzz. Was it Kylian Mbappe, or was it a mystery woman – the trick was in keeping the viewer invested.
A torch bearer runs atop the Musee d’Orsay, in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. AP/PTI(AP07_27_2024_000043B)
The builders of the Assassin’s Creed franchise would sneak in a tweet wondering if their masked figure Arno was the hidden man. But French tales are replete with mysteries like ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’, unsolved since 1703. It didn’t matter in the end, for it gave the world the enduring image of a silver horse galloping on the river with a masked rider.
Despite the steady rain, the opening ceremony carried on, with an entire operatic orchestra dripping drops from their trumpets.
It was a perfect musical melange. Lady Gaga was just as striking in a pink plumage putting up a cabaret on a stairway, in French, riffing off her Jazz and Piano Vegas days. Céline Dion closed out the show, looking statuesque on Eiffel Tower, singing “L’Hymne à l’amour”, in her first sighting after being diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome.
It was a ceremony where the grand piano alternated between being simultaneously drenched and set dramatically aflame, as French singer Juliette Armanet, accompanied by pianist Sofiane Pamart, sang Yoko and John Lennon’s Imagine.
Paris 2024 Olympics – Opening Ceremony – Paris, France – July 26, 2024. Torchbearers Teddy Riner and Marie-Jose Perec light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony. (REUTERS/Marko Djurica)
The rain, that pelted on an opening ceremony for the first time since 1952, brought the sleet and sheen of determination on all performers. Classical French composer Maurice Ravel detoured to an impromptu “Jeux d’eau”, which means fountains.
It was totally French to think up colourful fountains springing out of a river to welcome the contingents. The music seamlessly went from Algerian-French rapper Rim’K, getting Snoop Dogg to dance along, to French mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel, ethereal in a geometric cut of white-blue-red gown, rendering a rousing “La Marseillaise.”
Not a dull moment
Heavy metal rockers Gojira played out from balconies and that segued straight into opera, such was the breathtaking expanse of the background score.
Opening Ceremony watchers, accustomed to glorified joyous ushers dancing with various iterations of pompoms at round stadia, were shaken out of that ennui, as Paris put out proper dancers on the fringes. On bridges, on the riverfront and stairways, on stilts as puppets, wired and suspended, and even on the scaffoldings of Notre Dame, from where the bells rang for the first time since the fire.
This wasn’t meant to be a coherent narrative trying to convince anyone that France is interesting or great. They just know that arts keep one eternally captivated, through shock or pleasure. So, they set up a fashion ramp on one of the bridges, complete with a golden chandelier and an oversized crown-wearing female DJ. Cross-dressers, men in drag, women in beards, an explosion of colour and freakish fierce styles sashayed down the makeshift runway, and just like that, the LGBTQ community joined in the fun dripping with stylish talent.
Paris 2024 Olympics – Opening Ceremony – Paris, France – July 26, 2024. Smoke clouds in the tricolours of the France flag are seen at Pont d’Austerlitz during the opening ceremony. (Pool via REUTERS/Ann Wang)
Hip-hop dancers, skilled ones, would take over at sundown. A ballet on the roof easily linked with French high-energy dance ‘Can-Can’ involving energetic kicks to a percussive beat. There was no room for dogma or clinging to specific tradition, as Paris nightlife played out on screens like a time-lapse video.
Earlier, a library rendezvous had cute hearts and iconic literary romances guide a same-sex pairing through teeny flutters. And Mona Lisa shared a montage with the Minions.
Not everyone at the Seine could absorb all the art and hat tips to craftsmanship (such as shoe-making) or inventions like air balloon flights.
Perhaps the most 2024 Games moment was recorded by NBC. Fans unable to hear or see anything on the perimeter had gotten restless. That’s when French influencer and content creator Super Boumj, who has 8.1 million followers on TikTok, landed up with a couple of giant portable speakers. With his impromptu party-starty skills, he got assorted Chinese, Indian, Argentinian, Danish, Ivorian fans, jumping to classics such as “YMCA” and the ’90s Eurodance hit “Freed From Desire”, according to NBC.
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Strains of music from Mali-born singer Nakamura coursed out. She had been cancelled by angered conservatives, but organisers kept her on the programme. She had responded to the attacks saying, “You can be racist but not deaf.”
Where the French organisers, who prettied up entire bridges and laid out red carpets for inclusivity in fashion, erred though was in banning French athletes who wear hijab from the opening ceremony under stipulations of “laïcité”, restrictive state-mandated secularism. A man in a mask was allowed to be the common thread of the opening ceremony, but women athletes in headscarves were not allowed to turn up.
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