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Ever since Niall MacGinnis ordered his devil worshippers—among them malevolent ghouls and spirits—to do his bidding in 1957’s “Night of the Demon,” cinema has had its fair share of egotistical male cult leaders. From Sidney Blackmer in the satanic double act of “Rosemary’s Baby” and Orson Welles’ bespectacled coven leader in “Necromancy” to a literally bloodthirsty Mola Ram in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” onscreen it is usually men who keep dubious sects in their thrall with their sinister charisma. In the likes of “To the Devil a Daughter” and “The Wicker Man” (in which Christopher Lee is repeatedly typecast as a cult leader), men play puppet master, manipulating others to gradually push them towards their own devious ends.
But in Mona Fastvold’s “The Testament of Ann Lee,” Amanda Seyfried plays one of the first female cult leaders to arrive on the big screen in decades. In this exultant, avant-garde musical, Seyfried plays the titular 18th century missionary, born in poverty in Manchester and raised without education, illiterate. An incendiary and, in many ways, revolutionary figure, Lee envisioned herself as the female Messiah prophesied by the Quakers and went on to establish her own group, the Shakers. A kind of precursor to transcendentalism in its idealistic, egalitarian approach, the sect is anchored by the idea that letting loose through dance absolves sin. She preached gender and racial equality, as well as communal living rooted in fairness for her followers, but her sect had one contentious founding principle: celibacy.
Through this proto-feminist figure, Fastvold raises thorny questions that typical films about cults do not dare to ask: If a leader emerged with seemingly progressive principles, the appeal of which are clear, at what point would one draw the line over the wild extremity of their beliefs and outlandish ways of living? The sheer seductiveness of Ann’s beliefs and personality are made clear by the biased perspective through which Fastvold chooses to tell her story. When Ann is first introduced, it is by one of her most impassioned followers, Mary Partington (Thomasin McKenzie), and it’s through this partial prism that we are inducted into Ann’s weird and fantastical world.
Unlike features about male cult leaders such as Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master,” Fastvold’s biopic is refreshingly and intriguingly nonjudgmental. Through Mary’s gaze, we see a matriarch—appropriately dubbed “Mother”—who is inspirational not only for her strength in the face of persecution and adherence to her beliefs but also for her commitment to nurturing her community of acolytes. The fact that “The Testament of Ann Lee” is a musical is no accident: rapt, euphoric musical numbers help to lure us into Ann’s universe. Intoxicating and exhilarating in equal measure, for the viewer, it is hard not to get swept along by Ann’s irresistible creed—especially when it’s packaged with such earworms.
Cracks in the foundations appear much more subtly. Despite being in her close-knit inner circle, when Ann’s niece Nancy (Viola Prettejohn) caves to her sexual desire, she is instantly, brutally excommunicated from the Shakers. Another significant dissenter emerges in the form of Ann’s husband, Abraham (Christopher Abbott), who grows increasingly frustrated with Ann’s chastity and is eventually compelled to challenge Ann’s status as Messiah. Fastvold also makes the decision—distinct from historical evidence—that Ann’s brother, William (Lewis Pullman), is gay, unravelling further questions about repressed sexuality and desire.
“The Testament of Ann Lee” gestures towards a long and less-discussed legacy of cult leaders on film. The very first cult leader onscreen was actually a woman in “The Seventh Victim,” Esther Redi (Mary Newton), the figurehead of the Palladists, a murderous cult operating under the guise of a cosmetics company. The rare examples which followed were the flower-crown-wearing Angel Blake (Linda Hayden) in “The Blood on Satan’s Claw” and more recently the escaped felon (from the future) Maggie (Brit Marling) in “Sound of My Voice.” These female cult leaders are rarely allowed the screentime that their male counterparts have or are cast as seductresses and manipulators rather than charismatic figures. This is despite many real-life cult leaders being non-male: Eleanor Bone, dubbed “matriarch of British witchcraft”; and Diane Hegarty, an actor and sorcerer who cofounded the Church of Satan with her partner Anton LaVey in 1966.
By offering an alternative narrative to these male portrayals—which is separate from deep-seated ideas about toxic masculinity and power—Fastvold demonstrates that there are no obvious answers to questions about charisma, cult of personality, and faith. These ideas are especially resonant in an era of online extremism and polarization. With its theatrical maritime sequences and euphoric dancing, “The Testament of Ann Lee” feels at times literally unmooring. Ann’s divine vision is presented entirely as if real, her transformation into another, holier being rendered impeccably onscreen. And, the film seems to ask, who’s to say it’s not? Yet an end credit title card undercuts Lee’s mission: Perhaps unsurprisingly, given their core belief, only two followers remain in the Shaker tradition today. Rather than dictating to viewers how they should feel about Ann Lee, Fastvold allows us to make up our own minds.
from Roger Ebert https://ift.tt/R4s53Az
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