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“This isn’t the time for prime artwork,” BBC presenter Hazel Irvine introduced, as protection of the Olympic closing ceremony started. “It’s time for a singsong.” After a gap ceremony marred by the climate (“Damp and extraordinary,” within the phrases of Irvine’s commentary associate, Andrew Cotter) and topic to a collection of confected rows (Donald Trump known as it a “shame” prompting inventive director Thomas Jolly to revise his script for the nearer), this Parisian finale performed it far safer. Much less excessive artwork, extra pop live performance.
Opening within the Tuileries, the place the Olympic flame has spent the previous fortnight, French singer Zaho de Sagazan stomped round in Doc Martens, whereas a choir warbled alongside along with her to “Sous le Ciel de Paris” (that means “Underneath the Sky of Paris”). She proved solely the primary of the numerous performers on an evening when music changed sport, on the centre of consideration. French indie rockers Phoenix, contained in the Stade de France, had been joined by acts from world wide: compatriots Kaminsky and Air, in addition to Cambodia rapper VannDa, Belgian singer Angèle, and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig.
Thomas Jolly’s route – of each the opening and shutting ceremonies – has, at occasions, resembled the frustrations of French New Wave cinema. Among the motion has been ponderously introspective (a shot of star swimmer Léon Marchand carrying the final flicker of the Olympic flame was pure Truffaut), preferring to stay totally unrushed. Maybe, as a consequence, the BBC allotted an additional 25 minutes, after the scheduled finish of the occasion, earlier than the 10 O’clock Information started (it nonetheless overran). With runtimes of 4 hours and two-and-a-half hours respectively, Jolly’s ceremonies would have Jacques Rivette checking his watch.
However the dominant temper within the Stade de France was one in every of reduction. A profitable Olympics – phew. Jacked up on two weeks of – if the rumours are to be believed – chocolate muffin-fuelled marathon intercourse periods, the Olympians paraded out into the Stade de France, bopping alongside to Joe Dassin’s “Les Champs-Élysées” and Queen’s “We Are the Champions” earlier than the stay music started. It set the tone for a night that had nothing of the artistry of Beijing or the carnival of Rio, however loads of danceable music.
When the inventive parts lastly took centre stage, Jolly took viewers on a journey into, within the phrases of the BBC’s comms staff, “the previous, current and future”. A trippy gentle present proved solely a backdrop to the arrival of a dancer in a gold-plumed gimp swimsuit (symbolising, maybe, the watching public’s relentless horniness for medals). What adopted was a maximalist reimagining of the Olympics’ origins. Cotter and Irvine had been readily available, as ever, to offer stay translation of the reasonably indirect narrative unfolding on-stage, a pungent combination of Kabuki, fetish-wear and Tron.
Closing ceremonies don’t carry the identical weight of expectation as their opening counterparts. Clare Balding, talking through the buildup on BBC One, described it as “the enjoyable bit”. All the identical, Jolly’s portentous evocation of the significance of the Olympic fraternity didn’t fairly hit the identical “enjoyable” heights as, say, the ladies’s breakdancing. For the reported tens of hundreds of thousands of Euro it price to stage the ceremony, couldn’t they’ve tempted Australian viral sensation Rachel Gunn – aka Raygun – to reprise her efficiency?
“That is what everybody actually comes for: the speeches,” quipped Cotter (who does a great line in snark), because the shambling music pageant vibes gave strategy to the bureaucratic section. However if you happen to survived that tedium you had been rewarded with the handover to 2028 hosts, Los Angeles. Mayor of LA Karen Bass took the flag and started the American invasion (LA ran considerably over the traditional 12-minute rule). A wobbly rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was adopted by the much-hyped sight of a 62-year-old Tom Cruise (wanting more and more like his Madame Tussauds doppelganger) floating down from the stadium’s rafters. LA native acts Crimson Sizzling Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish and Snoop Dogg, performed us out, stay from a sun-soaked Venice Seaside. A stark warning, if it had been wanted, of what the US is keen to put money into sustaining its gentle energy hegemony.
This closing ceremony has thrown into stark reduction the problems with the video games’ curtain-raiser. The Stade de France – an 80,000-seater stadium – proved a sufficiently massive canvas for the theatrical parts of proceedings. And in contrast to the rain-smudged digicam pictures throughout the Seine, the enjoyment and pleasure was plain to see on particular person athlete’s faces. Broadcasters the world over, in the meantime, should’ve been relieved. The present was rehearsed; the elucidation from the commentary field clearly pre-prepared. The dancers and cameras, inside the stadium, moved in good sync.
After two weeks of seamlessly delivered sporting motion, the high-class pantomime of an Olympic ceremony all the time feels a bit anticlimactic. However at the very least Jolly and Co checked the impulse to be avant garde. In any case, 1000’s of individuals may collect on the streets of Paris, however hundreds of thousands extra are watching world wide. This closing ceremony, on the very least, felt like one thing designed with tv audiences in thoughts.
