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Short description: 2015 Ukrainian documentary film by Roman Bondarchuk
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A fact from Ukrainian Sheriffs appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 May 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that Ukrainian Sheriffs went to summer school after being shot?
Bribes were required to gain employment or promotion, for many police interactions*, and theft of property from crime scenes was common. There is a hidden comment in this line. Did you mean to include that?
The commented passage from traffic stops to reports for insurance claims elucidates it a bit if 'police interactions' is too vague. I'm still undecided about including it. What do you think?
land theft Could this be explained? Is this a property dispute or an issue of stolen resources?
My understanding would be that it was a swindle or abuse of power. The source says of Mayor Viktor Marunyak: Кілька років тому він намагався перешкодити розкраданню земель у селі, і його арештували. which Google translates as A few years ago, he tried to prevent land grabbing in the village and was arrested. or Several years ago, he tried to prevent land theft in the village, and he was arrested. Being a backwoods village, with young people leaving in search of work, a fair number of properties are left vacant and I suspect there was some opportunistic attempt by outsiders to seize ownership through questionable means. During the film, the village council seems to be holding abandoned properties in trust, as in the case of the property of Kolya's deceased brother which is held for a year before being officially transferred to Kolya.
was arrested without evidence. Was he arrested due to his investigation? If he was, that is not clear. It would pay off to mention he was arrested by the militsiya
The source doesn't give any details on the charges. The best I can do is to summarize the facts presented and let the reader draw their own conclusions. (My guess is that whoever was trying to seize the properties had already bribed the militsiya, but the militsiya couldn't let it become too much of a scandal and were forced to release him.) It was earlier stated that the militsiya was the only law enforcement organization in the country, so I felt that was evident.
sheriffs program Is this a proper noun? The sentence structure makes it seem like one
No, not a proper noun. I've changed this to: Marunyak conceived the idea of village sheriffs. The formalized (proper noun) Sheriffs Program came later through the Interior Ministry.
Sheriff Volodymyr Rudkovsky flinches from wood chips as he chops kindling for a small wood stove. I don't see this detail being relevant
Without their coffee, Nothing else mentioned coffee?
yellow 1973 Lada sedan Again, is this detail needed? Being specific would make sense if the car's appearance is important. but it does not appear to be that way
but Kryvoborodko opens the window to finish his cigarette and the car's Ukrainian flag flies away. Ditto, detail
Discussing the above four points as the opening scene.
I should probably say something about the structure of the film itself. It's a documentary and it's somewhat episodic like a series of vignettes. The events take place over more than a year, so there are jumps and changes of season. There's no single story, no climax, and the conclusion was tacked-on. Rather than a conventional story, there are disconnected scenes with themes that emerge.
I focused on the more important scenes, the ones which were most often referenced by sources. I tried to summarize what was presented in the film without commentary or interpretation, and mindful of BLP since these are real people.
The opening scene establishes the tragicomic film. To summarize it in a less formal, more verbose manner: They don't have modern conveniences and have to use a wood stove for their morning coffee, but they don't even have decent firewood. One sheriff chops kindling so it will burn faster, but he flinches away from wood chips, making it increasingly likely that he's going to injure his hand with the axe. He finally gets the wood together and puts on the coffee, but it's all for nothing as they receive a vague call about a threatening incident. Abandoning the coffee, they get into a tiny 40-year-old Soviet-era car, distinguishable as an official vehicle only by a cheap little flag clipped over the window. After a bit of effort at starting it up, they drive down the bumpy dirt road. The sheriff in the passenger seat opens the window to smoke and the flag flies away. They're complete underdogs, with no resources and bad luck – but I can't say that.So I tried to describe what is shown. Do you have any suggestions for a better way to write it up?
They visit an elderly landlord who had sheltered a homeless man over the winter but the man later demanded money to leave the village. The wording seems off to me as it is not chronological and breaks up ideas. Perhaps something such as: Upon arrival, the duo find an elderly landlord who had sheltered a homeless man over the winter. The man demanded money to leave the village etc. There should be a few more details for this to make sense. Did the landlady refuse to provide the money?
This scene may be taking place weeks after the opening scene (I omitted a scene regarding the man with an axe). Yes, the landlord refused to pay. I tried rewriting, but again, trying to keep the wordcount down. BTW: do you think the narrative should be be in present tense or past tense? Since these are things which actually happened, normally it should be past tense. But the present tense feels more natural.
Sherrifs Should the S be upercase or undercase? The article is inconsistent
Sorry about that. I went over them and kept the capitalization only when the title is directly applied to a name, as part of the ministry's Sheriffs Program, or in the title of the film itself.
new neighbour include being could be written as, complaints include accusations that her neighbor is...
rephrased.
man with a paratrooper tattoo What does this add to the plot?
The watchtower is shown on the film poster and frequently depicted toward the latter half of the film. The man is shown but not identified. The military tattoo suggests he is a veteran.
apparent violence Violence does occur when someone is killed, yes. Did you mean foul play or homicide?
Good point. Fixed.
Featured cast Are these about the actors or the real people shown in the show? Can that be clarified?
You're right, they're real people not actors. I guess Featured subjects. Does that sound right?
Euromaidan For internal consistancy, should it be Euromaidan or Maidan?
I think I used whatever that particular source was using, but yes, for consistency (and checking the Wikipedia naming conventions) the Euromaidan were the protests which lead to the Maidan Revolution. Switched all to Maidan.
I am unable to view most of the sources on grounds of library/language limitations, but ref 1 links to a live German TV guide and ref 17 is dead
Okay, I changed |url-status=dead for both references; the Internet Archive URLs are still good.
Overall, copyediting is required for clerity, adding wikilinks to proper terms, and the addition of punctuation to indicate shifts of ideas, removal of unneeded detail, and the addition of detail to make casue and effect more understandable. Also, comments should go before quotes. I do not mean to be rude, but this reads like a translation from another language due to the clunky text I point out. Can someone else have a pass at the article to root out these issues?
I've gone over it for clarity. I didn't spot any missing wikilinks. (There are about 60 links in the body.)
If there is clear cause and effect, we can summarize that. But if there is not clear cause and effect, we shouldn't invent such as a matter of personal opinion. I'm fine with presenting what is shown and letting the reader draw their own conclusions.
The quotations without leading commas include a nickname Mykola "Kolya" Yanovskyy and in the second paragraph of Themes and also in Reception passages like Anna Yakutenko wrote for Kyiv Post that the film portrays rural lives "in a semi-comic way [yet] sincere and heartwarming" but felt that it did not go far enough into examining attitudes toward the war and that the ending was too abrupt.. That one is a bit of a run-on sentence and could maybe use some separation before but. However, I believe these are generally okay per the quotation examples at MOS:QUOTEPOV and MOS:CONFORM.
I don't normally reply before the review is placed onhold, but wanted to know: are you holding the review pending copyedit of the article? Personally, I would rather attempt to address the points you raise as part of the review rather than launching another review process (ie: copyedit request). – Reidgreg (talk) 15:30, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I should have made this point more clear. I pointed out the most obvious prose/grammer issues so those issues can be put to bed as I check off the other GA boxes GGOTCC16:03, 19 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GGOTCC: Okay, I went through it, took a day to clear my head and then went through it again. I admit that the synopsis section for this article was challenging for me to write, because of the BLP issues, language issues, the unusual form, and trying to keep the wordcount down. Maybe you could take a look at the rest of the article and then come back to the plot? – Reidgreg (talk) 15:14, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
