The Russian-American director Julia Loktev is a well-known director despite her small filmography. In 1998, she made her debut with Moment of Impact. Then, eight years later, she released her sophomore film with Day Night Day Night. She premiered her most prominent work to date, the 2011 film The Loneliest Planet, starring Hani Furstenberg and Gael García Bernal, based on the book ‘Expensive Trips Nowhere‘ by Tom Bissell. Thirteen years later, Loktev shocked the cinephiles with the surprise appearance in the New York Film Festival 2024 main slate with My Undesirable Friends – Part I. World premiering in the respected festival, directed by Dennis Lim, the film would challenge the audience with its three hundred and twenty-four minutes of length, divided in two different parts, and five chapters.
The first part, Crackdown, is divided into three chapters by the director. The first chapter, The Lives of Foreign Agents, begins with the filmmaker’s trip to Russia to encounter her friend, the journalist Anna Nemzer. Julia flies to Moscow to shoot with the reporter, who works for Rain TV, one of the few independent media outlets allowed to function in the country. The vehicle is a fierce opposition to Vladimir Putin and his dictatorial regime. In this sense, the initial part introduces the concept of a foreign agent, a sanction established by the Kremlin against journalists suspected of collaborating with foreign governments. They have to report all of their financial transactions to the regime, proving the lack of funding from outside capital. The complex process is an easy way to jail political opponents. The director presents the other subjects of this story, such as Sonya Groysman, Irina Dolinana, and Alesya Marokhovskaya, other professionals who received those punishments from the government. Another crucial individual is Ksenia Mironova, the fiancée of Ivan Safronov, a jailed journalist accused of treason.
Furthermore, The Lives of Foreign Agents is an introduction to what is coming next, in terms of structure and documentary style. Loktev chooses the Cinema Verité style to imprint the political danger surrounding those subjects, an efficacious choice to document the surfacing turmoil in the Eurasian nation. Anna is the central character in the first part as the filmmaker’s bond to the Rain TV crew, in the sense that the host allows the audience to understand the fears of the journalists on the Kremlin’s enemy list. Set in October 2021, the reporters already envision a brander conflict drawing from Putin’s office, particularly because of the light flame burning from the Crimea annexation in 2014. Thus, the second chapter, The Town Crazies, shows a view of those individuals in December, when those deemed foreign agents are still comprehending the limitations on their free speech due to that status.
Additionally, the work by Important Stories, an outlet from Alesya, Irina, and Roma, Sonya’s partner, is much fiercer and a frontal opposition to the Putin administration. It justifies why they got the punishment first. However, amidst the hopelessness, Irina and Alesya still attempt to resort to the judicial system, despite the unsuccessful attempt to break free from that status. Hence, the third chapter, The Holiday Special, seems like an optimistic vision of the upcoming year, despite the impending tragedy in the approaching months. In this sense, the first part exemplifies the pains and an innocent optimism towards a less aggressive attack from the Kremlin on journalism. However, My Undesirable Friends is a welcome glimpse at why authoritarian regimes undermine the free exercise of media, regardless of the conflict. Global combats such as the Russian Invasion or the Israeli genocide in Gaza target the media as opponents to prevent them from covering and unveiling the war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and terror promoted by those leaders.
Therefore, the most lengthy part of the film, Crackdown, is a necessary introduction to the unfolding events in the second part, First Week of War. The fourth chapter, The Expected Impossible, is the individual reaction of the subjects to the invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, it becomes a chain reaction to the foreign agents as the government attacks its neighbouring country, and deems Rain TV as an undesirable organization. Hence, alongside the fifth chapter, Don’t Say War, the journalists oppose the conflict, suffer in prison, and observe the closing of their network. Contrary to the first part, the second one is a kinetic escape from the political enemies of Putin, those who defy his policies and leadership.
Ultimately, Julia Loktev returns to filmmaking after thirteen years to deliver an epic five-hour documentary on the resistance of journalists against the Putin regime. It is a politically engaged narrative that stretches the chasing against the media and how the working-class loses their status as civilians to become enemies of a state that does not want them to unveil the wrongdoings of the administration.
My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow recently played in limited theaters.
Learn more about the film at the Locarno site for the title.
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