DIANA: A CELEBRATION OF LIFE (VHS VIDEO) IN JOHANNESBURG

Using Princess Diana's somber funeral as the frame, this video ("The Official BBC Commemorative Video," the packaging boasts) takes an admiring and elegant look at the world's most photographed woman. Thrust into the public eye at age 19, the aristocratic teen married into the royal family and became, as has been much quoted, the People's Princess. These well-narrated video segments (yes, BBC footage) are from official and public events: from photographers' pursuits of the child-care worker to her engagement to Prince Charles to her magnificent wedding (seen by more than 5 million viewers) to Prince William's birth to her many royal tours, duties, and speeches. The Diana who captured the public's fancy, who held hands with AIDs patients, who embraced the homeless, who championed land-mine victims, who departed from the stuffy royal ways, is respectfully captured here. While the controversial Andrew Morton book and her separation and subsequent divorce from Prince Charles are covered, the producers elected to steer clear of the more sensational and gossipy aspects of her fulfilled, though difficulty-plagued, life. Whatever the Buckingham Palace spin is--that Charles is experiencing renewed popularity, that his longtime mistress is gradually being accepted, and that Diana, by those in Charles's camp, was "crazy"--it cannot detract from the remarkable and impressive legacy Diana unselfishly left for Britain and for her sons, one of whom will one day be king. --N.F.Mendoza