‘My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile’ extends a scary story of journalists on the run

Last year’s best documentary never left us because Julia Loktev’s epic “My Undesirable Friends” is back for a similarly excellent follow-up we need now more than ever. If you saw “Part I: Last Air in Moscow,” which tightly followed fierce, dedicated dissident Russian reporters pushing against the lies and violence of Putin’s dangerous rule, you’ve surely been on pins and needles for “Part II: Exile,” which is no less engaging, if more emotionally intense. And if you haven’t seen “Part I,” which is currently on the streaming service Mubi, what are you waiting for?

Waiting, of course, is what none of Loktev’s featured Muscovites had time for when “Part I” ended with the news of Putin’s horrific invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A crew of one, Loktev had fortuitously been in Russia’s capital off and on for months, training her iPhone on a coterie of young, primarily female journalists, many of them working for the country’s last independent TV channel, TV Rain. They’d been declared “foreign agents” by Putin as a vise-tightening scare tactic, yet that hadn’t cowed these online-savvy, deeply sourced correspondents, as “Part I” unforgettably showed through grit, humor and an after-hours camaraderie that bestowed an intimate, sustaining vibrancy, like a meaningful hang with your coolest, smartest, bravest pals.

But with the onset of war entrenching their status as perceived enemies of the state, safety demanded they vacate Russia immediately, while their sense of mission compelled them to keep mining truth from the outside, wherever opportunity and necessity led them. Still, rootlessness takes its toll, along with isolation and national guilt (could they have done more?), plus the creeping sense that as long as Putin’s far-reaching vengeance persists, they are imperiled anywhere.

With the same rhythmic fleetness, chatty intelligence and empathy that Loktev made so enveloping before, “Part II: Exile” hews to its original sisterhood of protagonists: TV Rain host and mom Anya (also a co-director), up-and-coming reporters Sonya and Ksyusha (whose fiancé is a political prisoner), acclaimed longform writer Lena and investigative besties Ira and Alesya.

As they scatter, regroup and break off again, the work never stops, even when sources don’t want to trust them, the ground under their feet keeps shifting and the cloud over their homeland gets darker. And the Russia they knew? More distant than ever. Loktev also picks up a few more intrepid souls: cross-border marrieds Petya and Natalka (he’s Russian, she’s Ukrainian), a formidable reporting pair with a joyful, teasing bond; and bold 20-something TV Rain host Lera, whose old-soul expressiveness beneath her on-air glam is the stuff of silent movies.

With the travel itinerary of a James Bond film (Istanbul, Kyiv, Prague, Tbilisi, Riga, New York), yet the sweeping existential suspense of — what else? — a big, fat Russian novel, “Part II: Exile” is a nomadic, turbulent odyssey of determination and doubt. On these shores, viewers dismayed by our dictator-friendly, reality-warping regime will continue feeling an uneasy kinship with these heroic oppositional women who experienced the poisoning of truth and liberty up close, and needed to prioritize survival before getting back into the arena.

Still, with the breadth of everyday detail, and the women’s sharply observant wit — whatever the circumstance, they’re still funny — the six unpredictable, twisting hours of “My Undesirable Friends Part II: Exile” memorializes the deeply human spirit coursing through those who tirelessly fight to expose this autocratic era’s cruelties. Across an itinerant urgency of walks, drives, embraces, laughs, threats, nervy meetings, shared meals, phone calls and tearful testimony, Loktev’s immersive portrait of roving defiance is as necessary as nonfiction gets.

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