When Music Becomes Prayer
The Testament of Ann Lee certainly leaves a mark thanks to the universality of its themes and, most of all, to its fresh, original way of bringing them to life on the big screen.
One year after the premiere of The Brutalist (2024) in Venice, Mona Fastvold returns with another ambitious project, featuring an Amanda Seyfried like you’ve never seen before.
As the first of three acts unfolds, what stands out most about The Testament of Ann Lee is that it doesn’t simply tell the life and suffering of its heroine – it sings it. And not in the conventional way musicals do. The songs, composed by Daniel Blumberg and carried by the actors’ remarkable performances, function as prayers set to music – invocations, really –, and bear more than half of the film’s emotional and narrative weight.
The story of Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried, here delivering what may well be the most powerful performance of her career) is, at its core, one of grief and resistance. Born and raised in 18th-century Manchester within a deeply religious environment, as told by the narrator’s voice, belonging to her devoted follower Mary (Thomasin McKenzie), she becomes the founder of a small radical Christian sect, the Shakers, who regard her as the female embodiment of Christ.
Fastvold’s narrative delves deeply into how Ann Lee’s journey as a spiritual leader is irrevocably shaped by her experience as a woman in a man’s world. Once promised to her husband, Abraham (Christopher Abbott), Ann quickly discovers the brutal reality of marriage: forced to submit to her partner’s sexual perversions, she faces the agonising loss of four pregnancies, each ending in the death of the newborn. An extended prayer-song follows the events of this suffering during a long, harrowing sequence, in which music becomes mourning. Ann slowly develops a complete rejection of marital sex – a childhood flashback early on foreshadows this, showing her profound discomfort with the act since a very young age –, which further isolates her within her marriage and eventually becomes central as one of the tenets of her movement. Given the historical and religious context, to call this a feminist act would be too simplistic and anachronistic. However, what the film seems to suggest here is a (not so) alternative reading of Ann’s decision to embrace celibacy: a powerful, as far as unconscious, act of self-preservation against the repeated exploitation of her woman’s body. In one of the film’s final sequences, when the persecutors break into the place where the
Shakers live, violently beating them and setting everything on fire, she is forced to pull down her underwear: “she must be a man”, as “no woman could ever be this evil”. For Ann, the Church and the patriarchy are, in fact, just two sides of the same coin: she claims to love God above all else, yet the very institution meant to represent Him on earth does not love her in return – on the contrary, it despises her and sees her cult as something heretical that must be eradicated. While the whole world stands against her, we find ourselves sympathising with her. More than being told who she is, we are invited to feel what she feels: her suffering slowly and increasingly flows into her faith, all of which is beautifully embodied by the music. All that singing and praying then becomes moments of catharsis – not only for Ann, but for the audience as well –, where pain, devotion, and transcendence merge into a shared spiritual experience.
There is something undeniably powerful in Fastvold’s approach to this woman’s story that transcends the usual biopic conventions – if we can even call The Testament of Ann Lee that. Yet emotionally, I found myself somewhat disconnected, particularly in the second half of the movie, as Ann and her followers travel to America, the land of hope and change, where their rebirth is supposed to take place. Instead, this transformation never occurs, not just for them, but for us as viewers too, since the film, after a strong start, inevitably loses its intensity and never recovers from that point onward. Much like The Brutalist, the excessive length of certain sequences – which also impacts the overall runtime – risks diluting their emotional impact, making the narrative feel slow and repetitive, while the plot remains underdeveloped. We leave the theatre feeling overwhelmed, yet wishing we had known more about the protagonist – something that feels especially lacking after a two-hour and ten-minute-long film.
Alongside its monumental production design, analog cinematography, and contemporary reinvention of the musical genre, The Testament of Ann Lee certainly leaves a mark thanks to the universality of its themes and, most of all, to its fresh, original way of bringing them to life on the big screen.
The Testament of Ann Lee premiered in September at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, followed by screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival and at the BFI London Film Festival. A global theatrical release is expected for the upcoming months.
Comments
Post a Comment