All hail Amanda Seyfried who gives a raw and revealing performance, both literally and figuratively, exposing herself in everyway imaginable. If she is not in the Oscar mix I would be upset since rarely have we seen a film or performance this bold. Even as I would love to say that it's an Oscar Bait one, there is something way too visceral for that. Besides I don't think it's her doing anything other than going with the script which is utterly and completely Oscar Bait.
I utterly have no clue about the TESTEMENT OF ANN LEE as a whole. To be quite honest it has some of the greatest things I've seen this year (including Seyufrieds performance) but it is also has some of the worst things I've seen and is painfully reptative that I drifted off about a third of the way in and only occasionally connected from that point.
The film is the story of Ann Lee (Seyfried) the founder of the Shaker movement as we know it. The film follows entire life of Lee from birth to death. It tells the story using narration and songs and dance.
The idea of a religious musical about the Shakers sounds a bit odd but it kind of works. The music is all based on Shaker hymns and, along with the cinematography, are the one constant through the film. I would genuinely want an album of the music.
The problem is that the film is wildly all over the place on almost every level, and a lot of it just doesn't work or doesn't work past a certain point. Forgive me, there is so much here that needs to be discussed I'm going to do it off the top of my head (and probably leave points out).
Let me start with the sex. I have no issue with the sex but I want to know what in the hell director Mona Fastvold was thinking. Its not that I mind seeing the sex, but the flagulation before and during intercourse is shot in such away as to make the most artistic porn film jealous. I wouldn't have cared if we saw it once, but there are a couple of sequences and Seyfried looks to be enjoying it a bit too much, which is odd since the earlier part of the film makes it clear that she was not one for sins of the flesh.
Holding on to that the thought, the reason we know that, or are supposed to think that, if that is indeed the case, is because the film's constant narration tells us that. Actually the problem here is that the whole film is narrated. We are told pretty much every thing we need to know. We do not really hear anyone say anything other than something that makes a point of religous standing. Yes, I know that this is the point, after all the film is being narrated by one of Lee's followers, but it limits who the people on the screen are. They really aren't characters. Any dialog is formal and or stilted. All the action plays into the narration with no indication by what we see that perhaps what we hear isn't the case (which would have been more interesting)
And this is a huge problem. While the film looks spectacular, the film more often than not feels like a weird living tableux. The film feels like director Fastvold watched some of films from Peter Greenaway I keep going back to NIGHTWATCHING) and then tried to replicate or riff on the style, but did so without giving us characters. The result is a film that feels like a college theater piece reformatted for the screen.
Speaking of which while I love much of the dancing, and I am in awe of many of the dance sequences, the quickly deteriorate into a sameness that kind of bore. Dance in film or on stage is suposed to be an express of emotion character and story, but the moves and motions here are from a limited pallate. I couldn't believe that a movement that sought to have people moved by god (the shaking) would have such limited reactions. I ended up looking for video of services and I discovered two things, first the Shakers move in all sorts of ways, and second much of the dance seems to have been lifted from A SHAKER WORSHIP by Salli Terri, which is a 22 minute dance piece.
I honestly don't know. There are sequences here that soar to the sky and they are connected and set among so many WTF sequences that I don't know what to think. This is one of the most Oscar Bait films I've seen this year. Recently learning that Brady Corbet, who made the wildly over rated pretentious Oscar bait film THE BRUTALIST, some how makes me understand what happened - except that when ANN LEE works it's light years ahead of THE BRUTALIST. (perhaps if Fastvold had worked with Greenaway instead of Corbet this would have worked better)
Should you see it? If you are a collector of one of a kind cinematic experiences, absolutely. Everyone else your mileage will vary.
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