In February 2007, commemorating Freddie Mercury 60^th birthday (5^th September), Bollywood Records released this 2 disc DVD as a memory of this great human being.

The DVD is divided into two discs – ‘Lover of Life’ and ‘Singer of Songs’. The first disc, ‘Lover of Life’ features Freddie Mercury – The Untold Story, a documentary by the DoRo film-making team of Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher, who worked with Queen and Freddie over more than a decade. It tracks the life of the young Farrokh Bulsara from The Hospital Government Zanzibar where he was born, through schooldays in India, the working class suburbs of 60’s Bohemian London, and over the twenty plus years which followed; years of extraordinary and fabulous musical success.

You also have those that mattered most to him, his mother and father Jer and Bomi Bulsara, sister Kashmira; his long time girlfriend Mary Austin, designer Diana Mosely, who first met him on his Born To Love You video and became designer of his private wardrobe and public costumes; Peter Freestone, personal assistant for more than 10 years; Jim Hutton, his partner at the time of his death.

Besides this, there was also those who weren’t close to him, people who weren’t family, but a close circle of friends, from Queen members, schoolmates, photographers, record producers, and record bosses, to those back in Zanzibar and India, the relatives, school friends, even his first child sweetheart, Gita R Goshi, on whom he had a crush during his school day years at his boarding school St. Peter’s in Panchgani, India, a residential boarding school, where he formed his first band The Hectics, and a school report which rounds up his achievements as: “Accomplished boxer, good singer, outstanding pianist, unbeatable table tennis player, thoroughly mediocre cross country runner.”

The Extras on this disc include‘The Making of – The Untold Story’, a 20 minute behind the scenes documentary featuring extended interviews and deleted scenes.

Moving onto DVD Two titled ‘Singer Of Songs’ - The Solo Videos, we have  director David Mallet saying in his own words, “Freddie was always involved – with Queen or with his own single records – in the concept of the video. He was involved in every single aspect of it, and that’s the way I liked it, because we had such a good time working it out”, while adding that “Freddie was one of the really great originals of the second half of the twentieth century. There was nobody like Freddie. There was no one even a bit like Freddie. There was just nobody like him at all.”

The Solo Videos DVD contains all of Freddie’s solo video performances, specially remixed for 5.1 surround sound audio. It offers the opportunity to revisit such classic moments as the majesty of Freddie and Montserrat Caballé and fountains and fireworks in Barcelona; Freddie and 300 Amazonian women in I Was Born To Love You; men in women’s clothing in Living On My Own, and Freddie recreating some of his personal favourite video characters in The Great Pretender. The extended version of the The Great Pretender video, though a solo endeavour, may well be the kind of thing he had in mind; humour, theatricals, colourful language – and frocks to match.

If you need to know the order and track list, here’s the whole list that includesBarcelona, The Great Pretender, I Was Born To Love You, Time, How Can I Go On, Made In Heaven, Living On My Own, The Golden Boy, In My Defence. The Bonus Videos are Barcelona (Live Version), The Great Pretender (Extended Version), Living On My Own (1993 Remix). 

There’s loads of extra material on this disc and something to be cherished for you have ‘The Directors Commentary’, where each director explains the creative process behind the videos. ‘A View Forever’ a documentary describing the creation and unveiling of the Freddie statue in Montreux with an interview with sculptor Irena Sedlecka. ‘The Three Producers’ which is extended interviews with the three producers who knew Freddie best, namely Dave Richards, Mike Moran and Mack. ‘The Last Interview’ the most touching in this whole list is this last filmed interview with Freddie and its totally unedited.

Lastly you have an Interactive Photo Gallery with highlights from the Freddie Mercury Photo Exhibition, accompanied by Thierry Lang performance of Freddie songs. There is also a colour booklet with archive photos and details about the DVD.

As a Queen fan, I felt compelled to purchase this for my collection, as it is an excellent documentary of Freddie Mercury and I'm very glad to have it in my collection. I've read and seen and listened to everything I can find about Freddie, he's such a fascinating person. Rudi Dolezal worked with him till the end of his life, and did a great job of capturing his mercurial personality

Highly recommended for Queen and music fans of 1970's and 1980's.

God bless you Freddie, you are still missed.

Region: All, PAL

Full screen: 4:3

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German, Italian.

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 (Solo videos)

Runtime: 6 hours

Rating: ****

Reviewed by Verus Ferreira