When Lady Gaga first ascended to supernova celebrity, with the release of “The Fame” in 2008, there was a time when she kept her face hidden — under the elaborate masks she wore in videos, and even in interviews, for which she would also show up masked. It was a highly elaborate act of camouflage, but the ruse worked. She was only 22, yet she created an aura of mystery around herself, conjuring “Lady Gaga” as a larger-than-life character. (When you heard that she was really Stefani Germanotta from New York City, you would think: Really, who is that?)
Sia, born in Australia 10 years before Lady Gaga, had a career that predated hers as well. But by the time Sia hit her solo stride in the late 2000s, she didn’t simply borrow from the Gaga mask playbook. She concealed her face to the point that the mystery became part of who she was. “Sia: Nostalgic for the Present,” which opens tomorrow and is showing in select theaters for a limited run, is a performance film that was originally created for Sia’s 2016 Nostalgic for the Present tour, and in the entire movie you never once see Sia’s face.
She’s right there in front of us, standing and singing on a platform at stage left, hidden under a half-blonde, half-black wig with bangs that hang down to her lips. There’s an oversize white bow on top of the wig, and she wears a white dress that resembles a nurse’s uniform from the early ’60s. Sia’s greatest songs, like “Unstoppable” and “Titanium” and “The Greatest,” are anthems of strength, power, fortitude, invincibility, and watching the movie it’s fascinating to behold how her facelessness feeds that quality. She’s an abstract figure, a pair of lips singing, and this creates the sensation that the power she’s singing about doesn’t emanate from her. She’s channeling a force larger than herself — the rising specter of feminine triumph. She’s merely the vessel.
