Stephen Loveridge’s “Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.” documentary was an intimate look into M.I.A.’s life prior to all of her musical success.
The documentary was able to explain Maya’s background as a Sri Lanka refugee who later moved to London. She would come back and see her family that was still living in Sri Lanka and would have to deal with the way of life there since it was very different. A majority of the documentary consists of videos that M.I.A recorded of herself during her times back in Sri Lanka in the early 2000’s.
The film is able to dive deep into why M.I.A. is passionate about her culture and her country of Sri Lanka. The civil war in Sri Lanka had an impact on M.I.A.’s immediate family since her father was the one that started training the Tamil Tigers rebels and this later forced her family to leave Sri Lanka. She explains in the documentary that she’s happy that her father just wasn’t some gas station owner or doctor, but by her father not being around and supporting the Tamil Tigers instead of her family this fueled M.I.A.’s fire to use her voice to explain to the world what was really going on in Sri Lanka. The film isn’t in chronological order but jumps back and forth between different time periods. Stephen started recording his own footage of M.I.A. for documentary purposes from 2011 onwards and this included the infamous Super Bowl moment in 2012, when M.I.A. flicked off the camera during her performance. M.I.A. was frustrated with people not understanding her message through her music and videos and on the biggest stage, she decided to let her frustration out and capture everyone’s attention. Throughout the film there are many moments where M.I.A. is speaking to the camera sort of like a current day vlog but in her mind it was a diary and a way to express these feelings and emotions she had about what was happening in Sri Lanka. The final scene in the documentary is from 2001 before M.I.A. started her music career. In the scene M.I.A. and her grandmother are speaking Tamil to each other, and M.I.A. asks her grandmother for some life advice and her grandmother tells her to be happy and that singing songs makes her happy and that M.I.A. should try it since it makes her happy. A decade and some years later her grandmother’s advice made her into a pop star.
This documentary will help fans understand M.I.A.’s roots and why she is so proud of her heritage and culture. It’s able to shine a light on a country and an issue that’s not always recognized by people in the western world. The documentary is able to shed light on why M.I.A. made some of the choices she made when she did become a pop star, and most of them were because she was trying to use her voice so that it could help her country of Sri Lanka.
We screened the film at New Directors / New Films Festival at MoMA presented by Film Society of Lincoln Center.
