In cinéma vérité, a style of documentary filmmaking popularized in the ’50s and ’60s by the Maysles Brothers (“Gimme Shelter,” “Grey Gardens”), D.A Pennebaker (“Don’t Look Back,” “The War Room”) and others, the role of the director was to be a fly on the wall and not a participant in the action. In following a story or capturing an event, the filmmaker could not really tell where a picture was going or what it would look like in the end. After all, who could predict the climatic killing at the end of “Gimme Shelter?” But if a director is lucky and the film Gods smile on her, she might succeed in capturing a piece of history, a record of a time and place.
Such is the case with Julia Loktev’s “My Undesireable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow,” a remarkable film that serves as a historical document of a dark time—the months leading up to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. And Loktev was perhaps the only person who could have made this one-of-a kind 5½-hour movie.
Born in the Soviet Union, Loktev moved to the Unites States with her family when she was 9-years-old. In time, she became a naturalized citizen and directed a few features (“The Loneliest Planet”) and a documentary (“Moment of Impact”). She returned every few years to visit friends in Russia and as a native speaker was readily accepted. In October 2021, she started to read about independent journalists who were being designated as “foreign agents” in an attempt to silence them in an increasingly oppressive climate. She went to Russia to make a film about these people. And just kept filming until four months later Russia invaded Ukraine. Loktev was the right person in the right place at the right time, or perhaps, as she put it, “the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Loktev’s way in initially was though her friend Anna Nemzer (credited as a co-director of the film), the host of a political talk show on TV Rain, the last remaining independent channel in the country. Nemzer introduced Loktev to a community of dedicated journalists, mostly women, some as young as twenty-three. They look like they could be living in Brooklyn as they constantly reference Western culture—Taylor Swift, Emily in Paris and lots of Harry Potter—as a frame of reference for Russia. There are moments of humor that almost subversively sneak into the drama, but not a lot. These are young people trying to live their lives within the daily pressure and peril of life-changing events. We witness with full force how large-scale global maneuvering can filter down and affect real people in real time. The film is at once political, personal and totally compelling.
Smart, charming and resourceful, the cast is impressive and well chosen. In the face of increasing danger, they are a close-knit group doggedly dedicated to getting the truth out to those who want it. Even after Russia has invaded Ukraine, the official government line is that this is a “special military operation.” For people like these, the threat of going to jail—or worse—hangs heavily over their lives.
Ksenia Mironova, an intrepid young reporter for Rain, spends much of her time trying to get news of her fiancée, Ivan Safronov, a journalist who has been sentenced to 22 years for treason. Everyone knows this could happen to them, which is part of the government’s strategy to silence dissent. It doesn’t work. Somehow Elena Kostyuchenko, one of the most well known political writers of the resistance, manages to sneak into Ukraine as the war breaks out. And on the first day of full-scale fighting, Irina Dolinina is detained by the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, while reporting near the Ukraine border.
These people have all lived with the march of fascism since they were school kids, and although they are well aware that Russia had invaded Ukraine in 2014 and annexed Crimea, none of them believe that their country would launch a full-scale attack. When it does happen and protesters are dragged off to jail, a few of the women huddle outside a police station at night in the freezing cold to get some word about a colleague who has been detained. When he unexpectedly emerges from the door of the courthouse, it’s a brief triumphant moment at a very bleak time. They embrace and celebrate but most importantly they get back to work. It feels to them like a small victory, but there are no illusions about the road ahead.
Every Friday night, new names are added to the foreign agents registry, and by New Year’s Eve, the country’s oldest human rights organization, Memorial, dating back to the bad old days of Stalin’s gulags, has been shut down. New Year’s Eve is the most important holiday in Russia and people talk about their hopes for a miracle in the year ahead. Even Putin goes on national TV to promise things the country will never deliver while Loktev’s reporters interview dissidents and toast to their fondest wish—“a year without Putin.” The almost-Hithcockian suspense of the film comes from the fact that the characters don’t know what’s going to happen, but we do.
As these fearless journalists lose their standing in society and become outcasts, it is impossible not to think of other world citizens—Palestinians, Jews, Blacks, Muslims, etc.—who have been threatened and ostracized by their native land. The arbitrary lose of their voice is a chilling reminder of the authoritarianism sweeping across this country.
In the best documentary tradition, Loktev had no idea what shape her film would take. Upon arriving in Russia, she hired an experienced cinematographer but given the intimacy of the story, realized it would be better to shoot it herself. So the whole film was recorded on her IPhone, which, in the end, serves her well. The handheld footage moves into the corners of cramped kitchens and cluttered newsrooms, into cars and among the rubble of blown out buildings. The making of the film is subject to the same strainthat the characters are experiencing, it has an immediacy that can’t be staged or faked. Everything in the film happens organically and is presented that way.
I can only imagine the daunting task of editing the enormous amount of material Loktev had shot over four months. Credit must go to her and her co-editor, Michael Taylor, for allowing the story to tell itself. Capturing these events may seem effortless and straight forward, as it should, but beneath the textured storytelling is great artistry. Over its 5½-hour running time, the film does not drag for a second, and broken up into five chapters, it is not a chore to watch. In fact, at the end you may find yourself wanting more since the story is not over.
Finally, and inevitably, in the aftermath of the invasion, TV Rain and other opposition outlets are shuttered and the journalists have to figure out their next move. Most of the cast is seen hastily saying their goodbyes and packing a carry-on bag, scrambling to get out of the country safely—to Turkey, Mongolia, Armenia—any place they could get a ticket to.
But the work goes on. Loktev followed her courageous journalists to twelve countries where they continued to speak truth to power. “Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile” is in the editing room and is expected to be finished later this year. The fight for freedom, like this amazing film, is a work in progress.
