Ever since Niall MacGinnis ordered his satan worshippers—amongst them malevolent ghouls and spirits—to do his bidding in 1957’s “Night time of the Demon,” cinema has had its fair proportion of egotistical male cult leaders. From Sidney Blackmer within the satanic double act of “Rosemary’s Child” and Orson Welles’ bespectacled coven chief in “Necromancy” to a actually bloodthirsty Mola Ram in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” onscreen it’s normally males who preserve doubtful sects of their thrall with their sinister charisma. Within the likes of “To the Satan a Daughter” and “The Wicker Man” (during which Christopher Lee is repeatedly typecast as a cult chief), males play puppet grasp, manipulating others to steadily push them in direction of their very own devious ends.
However in Mona Fastvold’s “The Testomony of Ann Lee,” Amanda Seyfried performs one of many first feminine cult leaders to reach on the large display screen in many years. On this exultant, avant-garde musical, Seyfried performs the titular 18th century missionary, born in poverty in Manchester and raised with out schooling, illiterate. An incendiary and, in some ways, revolutionary determine, Lee envisioned herself as the feminine Messiah prophesied by the Quakers and went on to ascertain her personal group, the Shakers. A type of precursor to transcendentalism in its idealistic, egalitarian strategy, the sect is anchored by the concept that letting free by way of dance absolves sin. She preached gender and racial equality, in addition to communal residing rooted in equity for her followers, however her sect had one contentious founding precept: celibacy.
By this proto-feminist determine, Fastvold raises thorny questions that typical movies about cults don’t dare to ask: If a pacesetter emerged with seemingly progressive rules, the enchantment of that are clear, at what level would one draw the road over the wild extremity of their beliefs and outlandish methods of residing? The sheer seductiveness of Ann’s beliefs and persona are made clear by the biased perspective by way of which Fastvold chooses to inform her story. When Ann is first launched, it’s by one in all her most impassioned followers, Mary Partington (Thomasin McKenzie), and it’s by way of this partial prism that we’re inducted into Ann’s bizarre and fantastical world.
Not like options about male cult leaders equivalent to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Grasp,” Fastvold’s biopic is refreshingly and intriguingly nonjudgmental. By Mary’s gaze, we see a matriarch—appropriately dubbed “Mom”—who’s inspirational not just for her energy within the face of persecution and adherence to her beliefs but in addition for her dedication to nurturing her neighborhood of acolytes. The truth that “The Testomony of Ann Lee” is a musical isn’t any accident: rapt, euphoric musical numbers assist to lure us into Ann’s universe. Intoxicating and exhilarating in equal measure, for the viewer, it’s exhausting to not get swept alongside by Ann’s irresistible creed—particularly when it’s packaged with such earworms.
Cracks within the foundations seem far more subtly. Regardless of being in her close-knit inside circle, when Ann’s niece Nancy (Viola Prettejohn) caves to her sexual want, she is immediately, brutally excommunicated from the Shakers. One other important dissenter emerges within the type of Ann’s husband, Abraham (Christopher Abbott), who grows more and more annoyed with Ann’s chastity and is ultimately compelled to problem Ann’s standing as Messiah. Fastvold additionally makes the choice—distinct from historic proof—that Ann’s brother, William (Lewis Pullman), is homosexual, unravelling additional questions on repressed sexuality and want.
“The Testomony of Ann Lee” gestures in direction of a protracted and less-discussed legacy of cult leaders on movie. The very first cult chief onscreen was really a girl in “The Seventh Sufferer,” Esther Redi (Mary Newton), the figurehead of the Palladists, a murderous cult working below the guise of a cosmetics firm. The uncommon examples which adopted had been the flower-crown-wearing Angel Blake (Linda Hayden) in “The Blood on Devil’s Claw” and extra not too long ago the escaped felon (from the longer term) Maggie (Brit Marling) in “Sound of My Voice.” These feminine cult leaders are hardly ever allowed the screentime that their male counterparts have or are forged as seductresses and manipulators somewhat than charismatic figures. That is regardless of 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 Devil together with her associate Anton LaVey in 1966.
By providing another narrative to those male portrayals—which is separate from deep-seated concepts about poisonous masculinity and energy—Fastvold demonstrates that there are not any apparent solutions to questions on charisma, cult of persona, and religion. These concepts are particularly resonant in an period of on-line extremism and polarization. With its theatrical maritime sequences and euphoric dancing, “The Testomony of Ann Lee” feels at instances actually unmooring. Ann’s divine imaginative and prescient is introduced solely as if actual, her transformation into one other, holier being rendered impeccably onscreen. And, the movie appears to ask, who’s to say it’s not? But an finish credit score title card undercuts Lee’s mission: Maybe unsurprisingly, given their core perception, solely two followers stay within the Shaker custom at this time. Fairly than dictating to viewers how they need to really feel about Ann Lee, Fastvold permits us to make up our personal minds.