BABETTE'S FEAST Movie Review
Babettes Gaestebud
On the Danish seacoast in the late 19th century, two elderly sisters living in a village of modest, abstinent puritans take in a housekeeper and preparer of modest meals named Babette (Stéphane Audran), a mysterious Frenchwoman who does what the women ask, yet asks little in return for herself. Fourteen years later, she makes them dinner her way. Actually, the meal that Babette prepares is served to a somewhat larger party than just the sisters, but the resulting feast provides lasting and magical nourishment—not only for the characters, but for everyone who has ever had the good fortune to encounter this miraculous little film. Based on an Isak Dinesen short story and directed with exemplary restraint by Gabriel Axel, Babette's Feast is a multi-layered mystery that dares to provide a lot of answers, including more than a vague hint at the meaning of life itself. But who is this strange woman and what is she doing in this incredibly out-of-the-way landscape? Will Babette's true talents ever be appreciated by people who, by their very strict beliefs, seem opposed to everything her life stands for? Will they be able to understand the real meaning of her gift to them, or must the joys of this world always be rejected by them as dangerous hedonism? In the crowning, sybaritic dinner sequence of Babette's Feast, all is revealed; by the film's starry fadeout, we've been taken to a transcendental moment, and been rewarded with the answer to a question we may never have even dared to ask. (When Babette's Feast was released in the U.S., restaurants in some cities recreated, at a hefty price, the spectacular dinner that Babette makes on screen. Without Babette's generosity, however, the dinner was only dinner—the vain and hollow temptation the sisters feared it was. Moral: rent the film, but don't try this at home. Just order a pizza—but do get a good one.)
NEXT STOP … Tampopo, Late Spring, Ikiru
1987 102m/C DK FR Stephane Audran, Bibi Andersson, Bodil Kjer, Birgitte Federspiel, Jean-Philippe LaFont, Ebbe Rode, Jarl Kulle; D: Gabriel Axel; W: Gabriel Axel; C: Henning Kristiansen; M: Per Norgard. Academy Awards ‘87: Best Foreign Film; British Academy Awards ‘88: Best Foreign Film VHS, LV ORI, FCT, AUD