Matangi Arulpragasm is called Maya by her friends and is also the name in her British passport now. As M.I.A, Maya is one of the most exciting pop stars of the last decades, but MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A is less of a pop-doc and more of a portrait of activist Maya Arulpragasm, composed from her own video films and material that her long-time friend and former fellow student Steve Loveridge filmed. It‘s not primarily about M.I.A.‘s music, nor is it about influences and collaborations, though they do marginally come up. M.I.A. is the only popular Tamil in the west and she is the daughter of the founders of "Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam" which is regarded as a terrorist organisation by the USA and, since 2006, by the EU as well.

Loveridge‘s film isn‘t chronological, it tries to highlight her perspective through montages of critical moments in Maya‘s life. Lynn HirschergÄs accusation in the New York Times that M.I.A.‘s persona is a version of “radical chic,“ a term Tom Wolfe used in 1970 for celebrities who simulate political activism for image purposes, is focused on. Loveridge shows scenes from Maya‘s two month stay with her relatives in Sri Lanka in 2001 and it becomes clear how the experiences there influenced her. Whether M.I.A. succeeds in reconciling her political pop activism and the lifestyle of her partner Ben Bronfmann, the Seagram heir and son of the head of the Sony Music Group, remains unclear. The importance of M.I.A., who grew up as a refugee in a London council flat, doesn‘t diminish the success, and her personal connection to her causes is made very clear in the film.

Hannes Stein

Translation: Elinor Lewy