If you’re only as good as your latest project, then the Penns (all of them) are very good indeed.
— Chris Knight Flag Day, reviews
They Who Surround Us
Cast: Troy Ruptash
Director: Troy Ruptash
Duration: 1 h 28 m
Available: In theatres
It feels churlish to denigrate what is so clearly a labour of love, but such is the critic’s lot, so here goes. They Who Surround Us — the title evokes “They shall not grow old,” a line from Laurence Binyon’s Great War poem For the Fallen — is a heartfelt love letter to a generation and a time that is passing out of living memory. But its slow pacing and simplistic rendering of traumatic flashbacks may strain some viewers’ patience.
Troy Ruptash wrote, directed, co-produced and stars as Roman, a middle-aged Ukrainian-born farmer living in rural Vegreville, about 100 kilometres east of Edmonton, in 1987. Roman is a loving father to his young son Mykola (Daniel Mazepa), but when an accident claims the boy’s mother (Vera Graziadei), Roman starts falling apart.
Mood swings and heavy drinking confound the little boy, who soon takes refuge with other family members. But Roman is also suddenly plagued with flashbacks to the Second World War, when his uncle was a Resistance
A BEAUTIFUL STORY, (BUT) ALSO NARRATIVELY THIN.
fighter, and he himself a little boy forced to flee from the advancing German army.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Ruptash’s own background mirrors that of his characters. He was born and raised in Vegreville (returning to the beautiful prairie landscape to shoot his film) and his grandmother came to Canada after witnessing the execution of her parents in Ukraine. The director is clearly grappling with ghosts in this creative endeavour, which at least is a healthier tactic than that employed by the character he plays.
But after a few sun-dappled, slow motion memories of his wife, coupled with sepia-tinged recollections of the war, there’s little to engage the audience. We’re just watching Roman’s slow spiral into despair, hopeful that between church, family and his own resilience he can pull up in time. It’s a beautiful story, personal and earnest, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t also narratively thin. ∏∏