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Babette's Feast Customer Reviews (19 - 21 of 40 Reviews)

A Feast for the Soul
This is an amazing film...true to the original story and starkly portrayed. I first saw this film about 10 years ago and now I never cook a festive meal without a glass of wine at hand! It is a wonderful parable of grace.

Very Good Movie which does not wear well. Great for foodies.
`Babette's Feast', a film in Danish directed by Gabriel Axel and based on a story by Isak Dinesen was an Academy Award winner for best foreign film for its year of release and it is commonly held up as one of the better movies involving food. My recollection of my first viewing of the movie several years ago sustains the sense that this is a superior movie. That sense did not survive my current viewing of the film. Foreign language films, especially Scandinavian films, are typically a lot more subtle than comparable American movies, but this film is simply too low key to merit high praise.

The story centers around two sisters living in a small Danish community in Jutland (in modern Denmark), just across the straits from Stockholm, Sweden. I would need to consult my history to be sure of this, but I sense that at the time of this story in the latter half of the 19th century, Denmark was part of Sweden. The defining element in the two sisters' life was their father, who was a local religious leader of some note, powerful enough to hold sway over the lives of the small community even 100 years after his birth and death in late middle age. Before the main action of the movie, the sisters, especially the more attractive one played by Bibi Anderson has semiserious romantic encounters with first a lieutenant in the Swedish army and then a noted French tenor who is vacationing in Jutland for his health.

We reach the heart of the matter when a French refugee from the disturbances in Paris in 1871 is sent to live with the two sisters by the French tenor as an escape from political persecution. As the refugee, our Babette of the title, learns how to prepare the `cuisine' of Jutland, based on dried and salted fish, stale bread, and salt pork, we see her managing the sisters' household with greater skill than the sisters themselves. The climax to the story is set up with the coincidental 100th anniversary of the father's birth with Babette's winning 10,000 francs in a French lottery. In gratitude for Babette's being sheltered by the sisters, Babette volunteers to prepare the centenary dinner for the community by preparing a `real French meal'. In spite of the religious austerity of the community, the sisters agree and Babette is off to buy provisions, returning with all sorts of exotic foodstuffs, including a cage full of live grouse and a very large, live sea turtle.

The great problem of the story arises when the sisters and their community become apprehensive about the risk to their religiosity that may be posed by a gourmet meal. Hence, they all agree to eat the meal without taking any pleasure in the feast. Their resolve becomes unraveled when the nephew of one of the community members, a general who has seen much of the world, including Paris, is invited to the feast of 12 guests. Oddly, any analogy to the Last Supper is so subtle I'm afraid it escapes me, other than the number of diners.

The feast is resolved with all the community members being warmed to appreciate one another, the general revealing that Babette was the greatest woman chef in Paris, and the discovery that Babette spent her entire winnings on buying the means to offer the feast.

I have no idea if Dinesen's story makes more of this fable than we see in the movie. I certainly see some missed opportunities in not exploring the legitimacy of austerity versus our best understanding of Protestant doctrine.

The one way in which the movie rises above others is in the interest and accuracy in the preparation of the dishes. The script and the camera doesn't `dwell' on the food as you may see in the famous dining scene in `Tom Jones', but it does show enough to appreciate that the culinary consultant to the movie earned his pay in creating interesting and accurate 19th century French dishes.

While I sense I may have missed some subtitles in this movie, I'm keen enough to recognize that whatever I did miss would not add a lot to the movie.

If you happen to be fond of food movies, this one is very good, but not as good as `Tampopo' or Stanley Tucci's `Big Night'.


About Grace, Glory and Goodness
Some might say "Babette's Feast" symbolically begins when Babette plans to make a meal only princes have enjoyed before.

The story, and its subsequent message of grace and glory, truly begins when Babette is received by two middle-aged women with nothing to offer but their home. Babette has nothing to give that they want, and so the relationship grows from this tiny movement of mutual grace.

Babette, an acclaimed chef, needs to hide for political reasons. She is introduced to sisters Martine and Filippa by way of a letter from a mutual friend. As they hire her with no promise of payment, Babette offers to cook for the sisters who know nothing of Babette's reputation in the kitchen. More than a "Stone Soup" chicanerist, she has the ability to do much with little. Humbly, she lets the sisters teach her to make potato soup. Esculent in every way a potato soup could be, the meal convinces the sisters they have made the right move.

Based on a story by Isak Dinesen (author of "Out of Africa") found in her collection, "Anecdotes of Destiny," it is not a story about the clichéd sensual delights of food, as found in lesser films such as "Chocolat." It is about the grace of being humble, of serving, and of enjoying both the simple and grand things of God. Whether making potato soup or quail in vol-au-vents, Babette always is thankful and diligent to do her best.

When Babette wins the lottery, she decides to make a meal as thanks to the town. She orders delicacies unheard of, and asks the community to help prepare the feast. Skepticism dies down as her neighbors sample morsels, and a new life comes to the village. This is where the comparisons to "Chocolat" begin and end, as Babette's only desire is to lift the spirits of the town she has been so much blessed by.

The long table of near-gluttonous dining is memorable. It far exceeds any American Thanksgiving dinner cornucopia overflow, yet is as thankful. So much of the movie culminates then, and the movie satisfies the deepest hunger for a tasty conclusion.

Finding a layer by which to appreciate "Babette's Feast" is just a matter of watching. For Christians, you will find a subtext of understanding simplicity vs displaying gifts from God. For foodies, you will watch a dream meal presented as Julia Child herself never imagined. For cinematography buffs, you will see a French village shot in intimate detail, so as if you could smell the door frame wood after the rain.

Attend to your senses and sensibilities and order up a copy of "Babette's Feast."

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