REVIEW: Freddie Mercury - A Life In Ten Pictures

 REVIEW: Freddie Mercury -A Life In Ten Pictures

Ever since I was a child, I have liked the music of Queen. Their songs are ridiculously catchy, and also happen to feature in one of my favourite musicals (We Will Rock You) - however it's hard to deny that they wouldn't have become the major success story they were and still are today without Freddie Mercury. And so this sounded like an interesting documentary.

A Life In Ten Pictures is such a clever and unique twist on the typical documentary format. Here, we are given ten pictures of Freddie Mercury, all at different points in his life, and through these images connections are made to various important moments in the history of Queen's leading frontman. It works incredibly well, and allows the documentary to feel quite pacy, as we shoot through pictures of Freddie Mercury at school, and his drag ball, which sounds like it must have been a hilarious way of humiliating his friends and loved ones.

In-between these photographs, we meet various important figures in Freddie's life, and this was the only aspect I found a little underwhelming. Whilst it is interesting to hear from school friends, photographers and biographers of Freddie Mercury, without any of his Queen bandmates it can't help feel like something is missing. It's pretty bizarre that they didn't at the very least get a hold of Brian May to say a few words, and this is a glaring oversight which results in the documentary feeling 'good' rather than 'great'.

There's some intriguing thoughts shared in this documentary, such as the idea that Freddie Mercury became an image or symbol of status. I loved the line about his pram in the baby photograph looking like the 'Rolls Royce of prams'. It's like he knew as a baby that he'd become this major figure of showbiz!

It's also interesting to hear about his time at college. It's weird to think that rather than studying music, Freddie was actually studying the subject of fashion before moving on to graphic design. That doesn't seem right given how known he became for his rock tunes. We do learn that he joined a school band, and that he had a passion for singing during his college studies, so it's clear that music was still present during this time in his life, but it still feels strange all the same.

You can't help but feel sorry for him, however, during the part of this documentary which covers homophobia in the 60s. I can only imagine how awful that must have been for gay people during that time period, and I'm glad that things have changed for those of the LGBTQ community now. I know how I'd feel if there was a major public fear over autism (an 'autismphobia', if you will), and we do get that to a degree with people who believe vaccines cause autism (but obviously not to the same extent); it can't have been a nice feeling for either Freddie Mercury or others who were gay during that time.

What you really wouldn't expect to hear in this documentary is that it sounds as though Freddie Mercury was actually quite shy. This is something that really doesn't seem to tally with the confident and outgoing presence you see in his archive concert performances, but it appears from what we are told that this was essentially a mask, a disguise he put on to hide from his past and relatively poor upbringing. It paints a somewhat tragic figure of this man who clearly had so many insecurities, and wasn't as self-assured as you would assume.

Yet again, we also get yet another reason to hate the tabloid press, as we are presented headlines speculating about Freddie Mercury's health before it was even announced he had HIV. After what the press did to Caroline Flack and Princess Diana, this piece of factual programming gives us yet more proof that they are truly the scum of the Earth. They don't care about others' feelings in the slightest, and are the sort of people who will truly sink to the lowest of levels just to attract eyes to their readership.

Overall, Freddie Mercury - A Life In Ten Pictures is a wildly inventive and unique take on the documentary format. It offers an interesting insight into both the private and public life of Freddie Mercury, and an engaging look into this man's true personality, away from the prying cameras. It's just a shame that they didn't get his Queen bandmates to speak to the camera. Surely it wouldn't have been that hard to organise?

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What are your thoughts on Freddie Mercury - A Life In Ten Pictures? Let me know in the comments section.