There’s a kinship between director Steven Loveridge’s approach to his subject, the mercurial, confrontational British Tamil recording artist MIA, and her own magpie approach to music. Both cut and paste their sources and inspiration into a thrilling mash-up of noise and information. Loveridge has access to huge resources of self-filmed material, accounts of MIA’s quest for knowledge, about herself, her culture, her family. We see her travelling the world compiling the scrapbook of musical influences that makes her sound so vital. It is very much the MIA story told from the MIA viewpoint. Normally, this might be an issue, but, as the film points out, so many people have rushed to undermine and discredit her, it’s perhaps only fair that in this case she gets to tell her side, without spin or sly references to truffle fries.
