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| Andrew reviews the new release, Tortured for Christ. |
Enter 2018 with the newfound
movement of fundamentalist Christian film productions becoming a viable
theatrical enterprise and in some cases taking in more money than most
Hollywood blockbusters. Marking the
book’s fiftieth anniversary and co-produced by the late Pastor’s Voice of the Martyrs organization,
frequent Christian short filmmaker John Grooters of The Frontier Boys and The Noah
Interview has brought Wurmbrand’s experience to the big screen. Using the same title and filmed entirely in
Romania including in the same Jilava prison undoctored by modern day
technologies save for some 1940s period recreations on the backlots of Romania
as well as spoken largely in Romanian and Russian with some English voiceover
narration, Tortured for Christ attempts
to convey Wurmbrand’s ordeal and express his determination to stand proudly
against the persecution of Christian martyrs like himself.
Part docudrama with some
historical footage and photographs included as well as an evangelical Christian
sermon including being bookended by Christian concert numbers replete with
karaoke subtitled lyrics, Tortured for
Christ is a well photographed and reasonably well acted endeavor thanks
largely to Romanian actor Emil Mandanac (The
Crucifixion). Good intentions aside,
the question becomes whether or not this Christian film production works as a
movie as many like it unfortunately have proven beneficial only to a select
few. Though only seventy-seven minutes
in length, I got the feeling watching Tortured
for Christ that despite the authenticity, the running time was padded
out. I was waiting for the picture to
start as the opening credits and concert number unfolded and waited even longer
for it to end when we got yet another one with the film’s title displayed on a
large projection screen behind the band onstage. The journey between works fine but the song
and dance numbers bookending the film threaten to sink it entirely. 
Having gone through my own share of fundamentalist Christian films, usually out of cynicism but sometimes encountering pleasant surprises like the infinitely better and far more complex Risen which had a Hollywood filmmaker behind it, Tortured for Christ gets most of the beats right but at the same time I was curiously disengaged from the endurance tests presented onscreen. We’re never really allowed to discover Wurmbrand as a character despite Mandanac’s performance and the constant voiceover narration recalling the events in addition to sermonizing tend to take away from allowing the audience to truly experience Wurmbrand’s ordeal. It also doesn’t help that Martin Scorsese recently gave moviegoers THE quintessential Tortured for Christ movie with the 2016 masterpiece Silence. That film got deeper to the heart of spiritual and physical conflict in the face of human suffering than this well-intentioned but ultimately, I’m sorry to say, mediocre Christian film production ever will.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki