Those of us who first understood Shakerism not as a religious movement but as a mail-order furniture company — like a particularly elegant, artisanal version of Ikea — have much to learn from “ The Testament of Ann Lee ,” and a bit to unlearn too. Ascetic simplicity, the quality most conventionally associated with the vanishing Christian sect, is not exactly the order of the day in director Mona Fastvold ‘s blazingly ambitious and busy portrait of its founding mother, which oscillates dynamically between the modes of intrepid New World epic and expressionistic musical.

If the results are as bracingly eccentric as that description promises, they’re also less ironic than you might think. Fastvold and her co-writer/creative partner Brady Corbet may maintain a cool, analytical distance in

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