At nearly five-and-a-half hours — further divided into five massive chapters — Julia Loktev’s “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow” is less like typical docu-journalism, and more akin to Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” The first volume in a two-part series about independent reporters, it lays out its twists and turns early on: At some point during its runtime, Russia will launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Capturing this war and its consequences was never Loktev’s intent, but the film’s evolution (both as a narrative, and as a DIY production) is a vital part of its text.
What began as a piece about Loktev’s friends and colleagues being branded “foreign agents” by the Russian state evolves in real time. It’s even forced to switch protagonists at one point, owing the mounting logistical challenges caused by the ongoing conflict. While Loktev intended to work with a professional cinematographer, she would end up shooting much of the movie up close on her outdated iPhone X, yielding stark, realistic hues and a surprising intimacy seldom seen in political documentaries.
One question will no doubt be on most viewers’ minds: Can a doc like this sustain one’s interest for 324 minutes, even with an intermission? The answer is a resounding “Yes, and then some,” owing to the lengthy, casual foundation the film lays during its first three chapters (each running about an hour, give or take) using conversation snippets, news footage and even its subjects’ typed reports appearing as on-screen text. The Soviet-born American Loktev is a relative outsider, but her window (and ours) into the Moscow journalism scene is Ann Nemzer, a conscientious mother trying to do the right thing in the face of Russia’s oppressive regime, and Loktev’s co-director on the project.
Nemzer works for the independent journalistic outlet TV Rain, where the talk show “Who’s Got The Power?” focuses on activists seeking to make positive changes in Russian politics. However, new laws have forced channels like Rain (and each of their journalists) to declare themselves “foreign agents” in lengthy disclaimers, which the film’s subjects hilariously repurpose.
To watch “My Undesirable Friends: Part I” is to live alongside its characters, and to quickly grow accustomed to not only their newsroom hustle and bustle, but their colloquialisms and pop culture touchstones. Whether or not you come away from the film speaking fluent Russian, there’s a non-zero chance you’ll be tempted to pronounce “Harry Potter” the Russian way (“Garry Potter”), given how frequently the fantasy series is used as a point of comparison for Russia’s fascist backslide.
Drawing these connections may be passé and outdated to some, but here, they fuel the movie’s conversational momentum, leaving as quickly as they arrive in order to make room for relevant details about the who’s who (and why) of Russian power, as the movie’s on-screen text emphasizes a countdown to things going belly-up, made all the more ominous by the subtle death knolls of Sami Buccella’s scant but haunting score.
Loktev, who edited the film alongside Michael Taylor, knows silence is a vital dramatic commodity, so she uses it judiciously. However, the constant chatter somehow never grows repetitive, whether it involves journalists casually discussing their families and secret same-sex partners, or engaging in conversations about the mechanics they’re sure to face should they step even a toe out of line. Perhaps it’s because Loktev is presented with a vast ensemble from which to choose, but just as likely a reason is the basic reality in which these people live, one where new norms are shattered each day, and “normality” involves balancing the jovial, the banal and the dire all at once, over dinner and drinks. These dimensions are detailed and endearing, ensuring each new exposition dump is imbued with dynamic, multifaceted humanity.
A second film, titled “My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile” has already been shot, and is due later this year. In the meantime, “Part I” is as much about shifting political sands as it is the confluence of journalism and community in the face of mounting legal hurdles and encroaching authoritarianism. All these facets are forced into violent collision when the February 2022 invasion rolls around, turning the subjects’ lives (and in the process, the documentary itself) upside down. Three hours in, its focus is forced to shift to a novice journalist, Ksenia Mironova (though it retains most of its original supporting “cast”), whose partner is a prisoner of the state, and who’s soon faced with the reality of having to leave Russia once Putin’s hammer comes down on anyone reporting on the war.
The journalists’ camaraderie takes center stage in the film’s second half, which builds to stunning climactic moments of the “I can’t quite believe this was captured on camera” variety. Loktev’s immersion in the action provides a pulse-pounding quality when things come crumbling down, resulting in an intimate, enormous, urgent political portrait of speaking truth to power, and speaking it together.
