After the clamorous success of The Brutalist (who co-wrote with director Brady Corbet, who is also her husband), Mona Fastvold returns with The Will of Ann Lee. With this third film the Norwegian director returns to the atmosphere of the historic New England seen in The World that will come, this time questioning the birth of the Shaker cult. The film was released in Italian theatres on March 12 for Searchlight Pictures.
Il testamento di Ann Lee: chiamata e pellegrinaggio
Manchester, first half of 1700: Ann Lee is a diligent and perspicacious young woman whose spiritual carriage is clearly out of measure in the prosaic life of the English town. After a period of profound crisis that sees the death of his four children still infant, Ann receives a revelation and becomes the guide of his congregation of Quakers, preaching a new doctrine made of chastity and work. And when the local authority decides to have enough of this cult, which expresses its devotion through elaborate songs and choreography, Ann has a vision: the Shakers must start at the time of the new world, where they will be free to find a place to build their utopian society.
Le catene della biografia
Ann Lee’s will is an incredible 30-minute experimental film on movement, consonance and ecstatic experience. Ipnotic choreography, deep and wonderfully enhanced by a pictorial and romantic photography. Its problem is that it is wrapped by an additional hour and 45 minutes of biographical film on a historical-religious figure that, for my sensitivity, is more obscene than of help.
Not so much because there is something wrong in telling the story of Ann Lee, but because as a biographic film The will is simply ok, without infamy and without praise, far light years from the kinetic inlay of its choreographered sections. Complete the picture the choice to make it a musical that, although sensible from the conceptual point of view, certainly did not help my enjoyment of the film. The vote is low but the advice remains, if you have some head for something that is not pure entertainment, to see it: Fastvold is a clear talent, and the minutes in which it is at its best are worth the confusion of the rest of the film.
The cast
Amanda Seyfried is Ann Lee, the “mother” of the Shakers, which brings the cult to the New World. Lewis Pullman plays William, Ann’s brother and his most devoted friend and follows. Thomasin McKenzie, Matthew Beard and David Cale play Mary, James and John, three of the pilgrims who accompany Ann on his pilgrimage to the new world, while Christoper Abbott is Abraham, the husband of the “mother” who fails to accept his new vocation. Stacy Martin, Scott Handy and Tim Blake Nelson.
L’articolo The will of Ann Lee: ecstasy and hypnosis – The review comes from Dituttounpop.it.
