The so-called sanity the world represents

by Zack Budryk

I’ve recommended my share of movies with the assurance that “it’s better than it sounds,” but in the case of The Testament of Ann Lee, you’ll probably know right away whether or not you have the patience for it from the log line. It’s a musical about the nearly-extinct Shaker sect. 

Established in 18th century England as a Quaker offshoot, the Shakers settled in New York shortly thereafter. While they numbered in the thousands at their peak, they are today down to just three due to their practice of abstaining from fucking, which understandably complicates recruitment compared to, say, Catholics. Their name, shortened from “Shaking Quakers,” derives from their practice of dancing in religious ecstasy during rites. 

Mona Fastvold’s film, as the title implies, focuses on “Mother” Ann Lee (a never-better Amanda Seyfried), the founder of the North American community. The racial- and gender-egalitarian sect viewed Ann as a messianic figure, reasoning that if all humans are made in God’s image, God was both male and female, and thus, a God who had already come to earth as a man would naturally return as a woman.

Seyfried plays Ann as an eccentric, often mystifying figure, and one who it’s easy to view as simply delusional. Her personal edict of celibacy derives from the compound traumas of stumbling on her parents in the act and losing multiple pregnancies. It all sounds like the sort of thing you would see in any streaming cult documentary, the mysterious, charismatic leader whose teachings about how we should all behave derive from her personal hangups and preferences. 

Fastvold’s direction leans into the fine line between divinity and madness. This comes through particularly in the beautifully choreographed ritual dances. They’re rhythmic and symmetrical and emphasize Seyfried’s angelic features, alternately serene and twisted into a rictus. Ann and her followers move not as though it’s self-directed but as if an unseen force is flinging them to and fro, which, according to their theology, is exactly what is happening. The movie depicts Ann sympathetically but it certainly doesn’t discount the idea that she isn’t all there.

And yet, the movie seems to suggest, if Ann is insane, perhaps that’s preferable to the so-called sanity that the world around her represents. Shortly after arriving in New York, Ann beholds a slave auction and breaks away from her followers to howl “Shame!” It’s the sort of behavior you’d cross the street to avoid, but it’s also the only moral reaction to one of the worst depravities in our country’s history of extensive depravities, and Ann is the only one on the thoroughfare doing it.