Bohemian Rhapsody
Movie Overview
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) is a film about the rock band Queen, and even if the name Queen doesn't ring a bell, you must have heard songs like We Will Rock You, It's A Beautiful Day, and I Was Born To Love You in commercials and elsewhere (I mention these three songs because when I listened to the Queen album, I thought, "That was their song!!!!") (although I Was Born To Love You is a solo-derived song by vocalist Freddie Mercury).
My encounter with Queen
When I was little, I was used to listening to their songs, especially through TV commercials. At the time, I didn't recognize it as a Queen song yet, but in a Japanese manga called "Sakigake!! Cromartie High School", I had seen the vocalist Freddie's figure.
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I started to listen to Queen in earnest when I was in my third year of high school. For some reason, I first thought I would give We Will Rock You a listen. From there, I scoured the official YouTube channel and watched a lot of live footage of Queen. And the first CD albums I bought were A Night at the Opera, News Of The World and GREATEST HITS vol.2. The reason I bought the CD, at this time when CDs were not selling, was to listen to it anytime on my iPod, to get the printed lyrics and to see the liner notes (commentary).
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I was hooked not only because of their musicality, but also because I was attracted to the vocalist Freddie Mercury, who is the focus of this film. I was a high school student at the time, and I was quite shocked to see the confidence and imposing figure of the artist, who moved around on stage half-naked in Montreal. It's okay to be so imposing. Freddie's presence gave me the courage I needed at the time when I felt embarrassed to have a big attitude and to take a step forward.
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Review of the movie
First of all, the repeatability is great. It is evident that the actors made a tremendous effort to create their roles. Especially Rami Malek as Freddie is amazing, and I was very impressed by his cool performance even though the role of Freddie could end up as a joke.
Also, although the film is 145 minutes long, it was well-paced and never boring. Information that hasn't been crammed in yet (I personally think Live at Wembley Stadium in 1986 was the height of Queen's career, but it would have been a lot longer if they had tried to cover that too!) and some great songs that were not featured in the film (Save Me, Spread Your Wings, Friends Will Be Friends, etc., to name just a few) show how amazing this band is.
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The following are my impressions of Freddie as portrayed in the film, and I would like to disclaim that the real Freddie may be different. This is because, as has been pointed out in various reviews, although the events depicted are true, in order to make the film more dramatic, the timeline has been slightly swapped from the actual events.
It was a film that reminded me that everyone has their own dignity to protect themselves, no matter how much they are driven into that loneliness.
Loneliness for Freddie is portrayed as being due to his own ethnic and sexual minorities. He is portrayed in the film as a character who tries to find a true family that understands him, but has trouble finding one.
Freddie's dignity arises from his sincerity to the music and the audience, wanting to live his life as a musician and performer. In fact, in the film, he's fallen into hedonism, but he's furious at his selfish lover for hiding a request to appear in LIVE AID.
He sublimated loneliness through his music. I may not yet have something that I can take seriously like that. I wanted to explore it from now on.
For those who will be watching
Those who have listened to Queen in full will of course enjoy it, but if you're thinking of listening to it in the future, it's a great introduction. There is also a bit of premise knowledge required within the play's dialogue (the song from A Night at the Opera is brought up, but the song itself doesn't play). So, if you have no knowledge about Queen, it may be a little boring. However, the reproduction of LIVE AID in the final stage was spectacular. After watching the show, I would like you to watch it together with the image of the real LIVE AID. You can feel the seriousness of the production team.
The first song of the movie is said to be Freddie's favorite Queen song, and David Bowie, who wrote the famous song "Under Pressure" with Queen, is played at the beginning. Even I, who is used to listening to Queen, was satisfied with it.
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