The Huffington Post stated "Whether it's a comment on the absurdity of genocide (of which M.I.A. saw plenty during her early childhood in Sri Lanka) or a challenge to the idea of "other" in Arizona's immigration law, it is startling even in the context of recent genre-bending music art-films." Zach Baron, writing in Village Voice added "NSFW isn't exactly the word. More like art film? We can think of no goofier political allegory than the persecution, abuse, and murder of redheads, but then again, M.I.A.'s politics have never been of the kind you read about in the New York Times."James Montgomery of MTV described it as "unflinchingly, unapologetically real" depicting "the kind of things that most nations — including the U.S., which is portrayed as the aggressor in the clip — often pretend don't happen: the rounding-up of ethnic minorities, the trampling of personal liberties, the bullying of the powerless by those with authority." Real life parallels were drawn with the "ongoing issue of immigration in states like Arizona, the treatment of prisoners by U.S. troops at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, and, more universally, the brutal tactics used against minorities by government forces all over the world."Salon described "Born Free" as "the most violent music video in ages -- and a nine-minute masterpiece" adding that "M.I.A. has built a career on making music that's as outspoken as it is danceable" and described the video as "undeniably powerful, a lurid parable on the systematic ethnic cleansing that goes on all over the world." Eric Henderson in Slant stated "what stuck with me is the furious dignity it accords the main tracksuit-wearing prisoner, and the amount of anger it allows him to deliver....I recognized within him and the band of rock-throwing dissidents that pelt the armored bus a sense of kinship relevant to anyone who occupies a minority class."
M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.
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