A Soulless Ceremony

It seems Ha’aretz, Israel’s leading newspaper, shares some of our views on the opening ceremony. Here are a few excerpts:

I should have been excited, but I wasn’t. I sat a few dozen meters from the track at Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Stadium and was one of the 91,000 lucky individuals who had tickets for the opening ceremony of the 29th Olympic Games, an event that dozens of millions of Chinese and many other millions around the world would have loved to attend.

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Still, from where I sat, the ceremony looked soulless. No doubt, the production was grandiose and the ceremony rich in color, but it was somewhat schematic and mechanical, even a touch militaristic.

Note: In the original Hebrew article (which was much better), the words “maybe even fascist” appeared after the word militaristic.

In my opinion there were two emotional moments that stood out. The first was when giant Chinese basketball player Yao Ming walked alongside a little Chinese boy who barely reached his knees. The second was when members of the Spanish delegation started to dance while circling the stadium, ignoring the pleas of Chinese organizers that they complete their round.

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Yimou was quoted in the ceremony’s program as saying his aim was to put together a happy event. Going by Friday’s final product, he failed.