Sabina: Tortured for Christ - The Nazi Years

Wife found out about the film and its Christian historical message and we attended with hope that movie quality and production would appeal to us and curious movie goers. The first third of the movie was a bit quick to introduce the characters and develop relationships but once the leading male character began acting on his new faith the "care" for the characters and their mission solidified the story. Dramatic elements were good and cast and production were solid. It was a bit jarring to feel how the Jewish Star of David forced to be worn by the Jews and the papers looked at by the Nazis to identify and control the Romanian Jews is being played out with Covid Vax docs now in America. Watch the movie with someone important to you and you will feel challenged with how we spend our lives and react to adversity and fear for our safety.

The lengths that this family and this man and these people went through during such a time to live out and spread the faith is remarkable.

I'm grateful I watched this and was sent this by my church community.

To God be the Glory through His Son Jesus Christ's name.

Imitation of Christ is lived out by these beautiful believers during this time in the Soviet Union. It's inspiring.

The story of Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand is my favorite romance. Ever since I first read Sabina's story in her autobiography, "The Pastor's Wife," I've hoped to emulate her. So I went into this film with high expectations, and it met almost every last one. One of my all time favorite parts of Sabina's story became the focal point of this tale, much to my delight. There were a few creative liberties taken with the story, but for the most part, to discuss them would be nitpicking. There was a healthy amount of humor, and all of that humor served a purpose to either advance the plot or to drive home an important message. And the locations they chose for filming were often quite breathtaking, being set in the landscapes of Romania (where the story takes place) and Northern Ireland.

The choice to have Raluca Botez reprise her role as Sabina, but two decades before the start of the previous film, was a bold one, but it worked for the most part. There were points when you could really tell they had an older actress playing a young woman. Emil Mandanac, on the other hand, looks like he hasn't aged a day.

I gave the movie an 80% rating on account of two primary complaints. First, I wasn't overly fond of the editing at the very opening of the movie. Scene transitions were sharp and sudden, and it could be a bit confusing in the first 5-10 minutes. It was unclear whether the movie would have exposition in the form of subtitles throughout until Sabina started narrating, and their excuse for speaking English felt, to me, as contrived as the pilot episode of Hogan's Heroes. It is, in fact, accurate to many of the Wurmbrands' interactions with people whose native tongue they did not speak, but this fact gets lost in the way they present it. The jarring transitions didn't last throughout the film, but the narration acted as a constant reminder that they were there.

Second was the unusual decision to have the Wurmbrands seemingly distance themselves from their Jewish heritage after they became Christians. The Wurmbrands made a VERY firm point about being born Jews, to the point that Richard even rejected the opportunity to hide his heritage outright when a friend in the Reich bureaucracy gave him the chance. When a few characters, one of them a soldier, ask Richard if he is a Jew, Richard answers that he is a Christian. In real life, the answer would've been, "Yes, I am a Jew, as is my Savior." They did this because the pastor who baptized and trained them, Isaac Feinstein, also wore the star without shame. It didn't sit well with me to see these unashamedly Jewish Christians correcting anyone who asked them if they were Jewish. And if I could change just one part of the film, that would be it.

Overall, this is a beautiful film with a beautiful message, and it captures the love between Richard and Sabina wonderfully. I came for the romance and stayed for the message. It truly is a wonderful summary of what it is to be a Christian, especially in times of trial and persecution. "The heart of the gospel is forgiveness."

I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into when I decided to choose this movie as a personal girls night out. There is an option to watch a thriller but I thought just the cover page seemed interesting so I chose Sabina. Didn't actually know it was a fully enveloped Christian movie but I wanted to see just how an atheist could choose to love an enemy through God whom they didn't believe. What a tremendous story, I loved how they started off and the ending was worth waiting for. I was held through the whole entire movie, it was exciting, and many instances I could relate being that I'm an African American, and the fact that I am a true forgiver I immediately went home and pre-ordered the DVD in hopes to show it as an Easter movie in church. What the world needs now is love soaked and forgiveness it's the only way in this movie expressed it so beautifully. It gives me the desire that every chance I am broken and hurt by people to forgive immediately so that the love of God shows through and saves the world.

While the overall story was powerful, we did have some issues watching it. There were many points in the movie where the soundtrack and/or background noises were too loud to hear what was being said and there was no option for subtitles on the VOM platform we watched from. This is my reason for the rating. We read later that Sabina was one of the founders of VOM which was not mentioned in the movie or even at the end, an important and interesting fact that we felt should have been mentioned.