Freddie Mercury: Der letzte Akt

I won't give any spoilers; just want to write I'm so thankful for this (and trying to find re-air in US) as it felt I learned more about Freddie's truth...

He seemed an angel for me as his music was so excellent; and I thought his bandmates and he were special relationships not many of us are lucky enough to have.

To share their deepest feelings in this doc was proof of the love Brian, Freddie, John, and Roger, and others felt. Truly a great tribute to those we've lost...

I want to add, in the early 90s when in the corp kitchen for morning coffee, the TV blasted that researchers found HIV and/or AIDS was NOT a "gay disease"; dishes clattered to tables and floors and gasps were heard... we all knew we all could fall to these diseases... and those who disparaged "gays" worried the most, I think...

But when a documentary is titled "Final Act", then you'd expect revelatory insights into Freddie's final years & moments alive. Hardly. Instead, what we get are repeats of interviews & snippets that you already would have seen in other documentaries or Youtube. Most of what is portrayed doesn't offer us anything we don't already know.

Sadly, much this documentary also comes off as an apologist act for Freddie's life choices. While feeling sad for his demise, a better balance would be to recognise that he ultimately was a victim of his own decision to live hard and fast and ignore warning signs when HIV began taking off. Freddie lived in the fast lane - like many of his peers in the rock world. Unfortunately, it caught up to him.

This documentary ignores that, choosing instead to focus on the plight of Freddie & other AIDS victims & the negative portrayal of gays associated with the disease. I get that. After 30-40 years of fighting HIV infections and raising awareness, we get it - there are real victims in the cause. But how bout being honest and also admitting that many people - like Freddie - do get AIDS because they ignored the dangers?

In the words of George Michael during Freddie's tribute concert - "...please, for your own sake, be careful..." It appears this documentary ignores that message.

Wouldn't it have been of greater service to Freddie's memory if the documentary actually focused on that? So, if you want a more honest look at the man Freddie Bulsara - warts and all, then watch the movie. Or the BBC documentary "Who Wants To Live Forever".

He'll live forever to me, until I'm alive.

Sometime I wish I was older, so that I could've lived at the same time as he did, to have a chance to meet him.

He is what I CALL : A MUSICIAN.

A singer, a Legend.

Queen were a massive pop band with a long string of catchy, distinctive hits, fronted by the extraordinary Freddie Mercury, who sadly died of AIDS. This documentary tells the story of his final years, and of the concert staged to honour his death. In small doses, I love a bit of Queen, but sometimes it seems that the surviving band members do nothing else in their lives these days but milk the nostalgia. Moreover, it seems that Freddie did his dying away from his working; although messars May and Taylor speak sensitively and sympathetically about their bandmate, it's also clear they had minor roles in his "final act." So I liked this documentary, but there's not a lot here that anyone interested won't have been before.

The music was solid. They pushed hard against linking his lifestyle choices with his death. They talk about Rock Hudson's death from AIDS and poo-poo people linking the lifestyle with the disease. They make fun of the president for saying "gay cancer" as a slang for AIDS although almost all deaths then made that link. Today they have a 600% greater chance of AIDS but QUEEN defends Freddie's lifestyle. They say people didn't understand him. Remember in BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY when he was in truck stops sharing needles and toilet stalls? That is all choice. They talk to boyfriends of his and they talk about his choices that killed him. The show goes into "gay plague" and fight the fact it was appropriate. Rock Hudson, Freddie Mercury, George Michael, Liberachi, Jermaine Stewart, David Cole, Easy E, etc. Great music. Very sad.