CHRIS KNIGHT A strategically curated image
Documentary on controversial rapper omits some details, emphasizes others
When I learned in the opening minutes of this helter-skelter music documentary that firsttime director Steve Loveridge is also a longtime friend of his subject, rapper M.I.A., it caused my BS detector to quiver. And while it never did more than that, it’s clear that M.I.A. — a.k.a. Maya, a.k.a. Matangi — is working with Loveridge to present a very particular image of herself.
For non-fans, a quick recap: M.I.A., born Mathangi Arulpragasam in 1975, grew up in London after her family moved there from Sri Lanka when she was nine. Her dad, a leader in the Tamil independence movement, stayed behind to train soldiers and fight in the ongoing civil war.
The young woman went to art college with the idea of becoming a documentary filmmaker, but a chance meeting with the frontwoman for the band Elastica led her to begin making music videos and then her own music. Among her accolades are three Grammy nominations and an Oscar nom, the last for best original single from the movie Slumdog Millionaire.
M.I.A. wears her pro-Tamil politics on her sleeve, causing some to label her a terrorist sympathizer. A 2010 New York Times Magazine feature by Lynn Hirschberg said as much but also undercut the music star, calling her naive and unsophisticated. The line that really rankled was when M.I.A. was quoted as saying “I kind of want to be an outsider,” with the writer noting she was “eating a truffle-flavoured French fry” at the time.
Loveridge benefits from access to all of M.I.A.’s old home movies and self-shot video, but he doesn’t always seem to know what to do with it. The timeline bounces erratically from the near-present to 2001 (one of her trips back to the old country) and then to 2009 and the birth of her child. Oddly, the father, her now-ex-husband Ben Bronfman — yes, of those Bronfmans — isn’t mentioned.
Fans of the singer will no doubt enjoy the backstage pass this doc affords. And the portrait is not wholly one-dimensional: We sense some of M.I.A.’s uncertainties and inconsistencies, not least the several divides between her relatively comfortable London upbringing — say what you will, but Brixton isn’t a war zone — versus the conditions in her homeland, and the surrealism of becoming a performer who can rub elbows with Kanye West and Madonna.
For those who know nothing of M.I.A.’s career, politics and controversies — like the time she flipped the bird at TV audiences during the 2012 Superbowl halftime show — Matangi/ Maya/M.I.A. will function as an introduction and an education.
Just don’t expect to walk away admiring everything about this complicated persona.