Film Review: MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A. Is An Immigrant’s Tale
When you are displaced from your country, you do not just lose a territory; you lose family, culture, and the ability to have a solo identity. Instead, you become who you are as a spirit, and who you are seen as societally: an immigrant. This is the gripe that fractures M.I.A throughout MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A., which captures her formative years as both a kid and an artist. She goes from Sri Lanka’s world that, though poor and violent, contains the love of her culture and people, to the U.K., which, though materially bountiful, can be spiritually colder.
Opportunity is always defined materialistically, and this can be seen as thousands of Sri Lankan families are placed in Brixton, U.K. One of those families escaping genocide and the cruelties that form in a war-torn country, is M.I.A’s. Directed bySteve Loveridge, MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A. shows that, though they escaped to physical safety, they were not socially welcomed. Racism is everywhere, and immigrants are, often, the scapegoats for the wealthy and white to explain to the poorer whites and blacks why the cannot move socially upwards. In essence, high society propagandas immigrants as the “chains” of the less fortunate, despite them being even LESS fortunate. For M.I.A, such foolishness is what assures everyone stays at “the bottom,” but high society forgets that there is one enemy “class” can never destroy: creativity.
Since the beginning of time, “the artist” has been our human reflection and renaissance, of which M.I.A completely fulfills that description. She WANTS to say “something” through her art, and she is multi-talented. The film asserts M.I.A. is naturally gifted. She simply decides, “I want to be a painter,” and next thing you know: SHE IS! Her affinity to pick up artistic trades is connected to and furthers her compassion. She needs art because she needs to speak up and speak out. It is fascinating to watch that, all her life, she has been an inquisitive, empathetic, and seeking soul. Her courage to confront struggles and ask for a richer meaning in life did not come with stardom; it is what gave her it.
The film is an amassing of video footage she has taken of herself throughout her life, and she is immensely vulnerable, positive, and wise with the camera. It is actually shocking because I am sure that, when she filmed her travels to Sri Lanka, her private, bedroom cries over how “lost” she felt in life, and her being a silly kid dancing in front of the mirror, she did not know they would all be placed in a documentary about her life.Yet, that is what makes the film so exciting and hopeful for viewers; you watch a “normal girl,” with some heavy traumas, become a mega star. Life, literally, puts her in the predicaments she needs to be in so as to rise, eventually, as a rapper. Still, we see this because we know that Mathangi will become M.I.A., but she did not know that at age 11 or 21. Thus, while she is crying about her need for meaning in her life, we, the audience, see her getting it unbeknownst to herself.
“If you come from the struggle how the f—k do you talk about the struggle without talking about the struggle?” M.I.A declares. Through her life, she becomes obsessed with who she could have been had she stayed in Sri Lanka, and so does every refugee or immigrant child with his/her native country. We always wonder what life would have been for us in our home country because we get treated like visitors. The truth is that when the world rejects and moves you according to its whims, you have to be independent. To M.I.A, the choice to be strong was automatic because it is in her nature.Yet, as viewers, we know better. Just because a situation asks you to be strong, does not mean you become it.
M.I.A. – “Bad Girls” (Official Video)
One of the most powerful messages of MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A, is how we select public outrage.
Her music video gets banned for reenacting a shooting, but the terrorist video it was based upon is still up. She gets so criticized at the Super Bowl for putting her middle finger up that people forget to talk about the entire game over one second. Moreover, I think more discussion has been had over that finger then on the physical/ mental health issues sparked by this game upon players. Catch my drift?! As a society we are obsessed with titles more than we are behaviors. We are living in a world that will argue, even more, whether racist behaviors can be called racist rather than take action against the behavior. M.I.A calls out that BS because, as an immigrant, she cannot afford to deny a struggle she is living in. MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A comes out in theaters and iTunes on September 28.
