From the very first scenes of the wild, wondrous film The Testament of Ann Lee (directed by Mona Fastvold), I was not entirely sure what I was watching, but I was enraptured. Ostensibly a biopic about Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), the 18th-century leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (or the Shakers, as we commonly know them), the film might be better understood as an experimental musical, so tightly knit is its entire structure to song and dance. In the opening scene, and throughout the film, bodies convulse and shake; they move in improvisational rhythms that merge into patterns and repetitions; they heave and roll and jump and skip in forms that move fluidly between modern dance and old English country dancing. And they sing fluidly, improvisationally, in harmony and solo, endless hymns in love of God. The song and dance form a constant kinetic rhythm holding the film together, uniting the believers to each other and buoying their faith in the divine love that fills them.
This is not to say there is no plot to hold together the arc of Ann’s life. The film relies primarily on early testimonies recorded by Ann’s earliest followers, which are full of miracles, visions, and spiritual power. One of Ann’s closest followers and friends, Sister Mary (Thomasin McKenzie), narrates Ann’s life, often quoting directly from these early documents. Ann has been seeking and preparing for spiritual insight her whole life, most earnestly in the small home church of “shaking Quakers” run by Jane Wardley (Stacy Martin) and her husband, James (Scott Handy). Through ecstatic dance and song, she has opened her body and soul to whatever truth God will impart. In turn, her small community has been eagerly expecting a second coming of revelation, this time in the body of a woman, to complete the work of God in Christ.
During the first of her many imprisonments, weakened by lack of food and drink, Ann receives the full revelation of God. Her body is covered in feathery down, she experiences herself levitating off the prison floor, and she reports later that it was as though “the whole spiritual world was revealed to me.” The spiritual truth that opens to her is this: The root of all sin lies in sex, and the only path to true union with God is complete celibacy, the public confession of sin, and communal life.
