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Babette's Feast More at IMDbPro »Babettes gæstebud (original title)
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| Index | 89 reviews in total |
82 out of 88 people found the following review useful:
My Favorite Film (and I Love movies), 3 January 2005
Author:
jerayne1021 from Arcata, CA
Babette's Feast, for me, is about healing: mending the schism between spirit and body in orthodox Christianity. This puritanical community in remote Denmark is missing an adequate appreciation of all of God's gifts in creation. They have taken the dualism of St. Paul to an extreme, and stress the life of the "spirit," not the life of the "flesh." Both elderly sisters, in their youth, were frightened by the lure of love and the temptations of life outside their simple village. They, and their parishioners, cling to the narrow biblical interpretation of their former leader, and the sisters' father. The aging congregation has become testy and quarrelsome, and the sisters don't know what to do. Enter Babette, a French stranger, and someone to whom they can show kindness. They have no way of knowing that she will ultimately return their kindness and give fertile soil to their dry, dusty theology. Babette will give everything she has, and in the process, will teach the sisters and their flock about grace, about sacrifice, about how sensual experience (as in the bread and wine of the Eucharist) can change lives, and about why true art moves us so deeply. When they can forgive each other, and themselves, they can focus on God's love that unfolds before them in a concrete way in the present. As a minister, and an artist, I can't recommend a movie more highly. True art and true grace!!
58 out of 61 people found the following review useful:
Food For Body and Soul, 17 May 2005
Author:
gftbiloxi (gftbiloxi@yahoo.com) from Biloxi, Mississippi
Flawlessly directed, written, performed, and filmed, this quiet and
unpretentious Danish film is an example of cinema at its best, and if a
person exists who can watch BABETTE'S FEAST without being touched at a
very fundamental level, they are a person I do not care to know.
The story is quite simple. In the 1800s, two elderly maiden ladies
(Birgitte Federspiel and Bodil Kjer) reside in remote Jutland, where
they have sacrificed their lives, romantic possibilities, and personal
happiness in order to continue their long-dead father's religious
ministry to the small flock he served. One of the women's youthful
admirers sends to them a Frenchwoman, Babette (Stéphane Audran), whose
husband and son have been killed in France and who has fled her
homeland lest she meet the same fate. Although they do not really
require her services, the sisters engage her as maid and cook--and as
the years pass her cleverness and tireless efforts on their behalf
enables the aging congregation to remain together and the sisters to
live in more comfort than they had imagined; indeed, the entire village
admires and depends upon her.
One day, however, Babette receives a letter: she has won a lottery and
is now, by village standards, a wealthy woman. Knowing that her new
wealth will mean her return to France, the sisters grant her wish that
she be allowed to prepare a truly French meal for them and the members
of their tiny congregation. The meal and the evening it is served is
indeed a night to remember--but not for reasons that might be expected,
for Babette's feast proves to be food for both body and soul, and is
ultimately her gift of love to the women who took her in and the
villagers who have been so kind to her.
The film is extraordinary in every way, meticulous in detail yet not
overpowering in its presentation of them. As the film progresses, we
come to love the characters in both their simple devotion to God and
their all-too-human frailties, and the scenes in which Babette prepares
her feast and in which the meal is consumed are powerful, beautiful,
and incredibly memorable. There have been several films that have used
food as a metaphor for love, but none approach the simple artistry and
beauty of BABETTE'S FEAST, which reminds us of all the good things
about humanity and which proves food for both body and soul. Highly,
highly recommended.
Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer
61 out of 68 people found the following review useful:
A bittersweet, redemptive northern masterpiece, 6 December 2000
Author:
Dennis Littrell (dalittrell@yahoo.com) from SoCal
(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut
to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it
at Amazon.)
Take the style of Ingmar Bergman, stir in some Lutheranism, add a dash
of Guy De Maupassant, a pinch of Chekov (such a severe and forbidding
brew!). Mix well with the grand cuisine of nineteenth century France
and what do you have? Babette's Feast!
Our story (from an Isak Dinesen short story) is of two lovely maiden
sisters from Jutland, the pious daughters of a stern and dictatorial
minister, who spurn their chance for love to remained devoted to their
austere Protestant creed and to their puritanical and selfish father.
We are subjected to the bleak, harsh winters, to the endless hours of
knitting, to the long silences and the sighs upon sighs... Ah, the
Danes, the Norwegians, the Swedes, how beautifully they brood! We see
the barren beauty of Martina, who so enchanted the young cavalryman
that when he could not melt her cold, cold heart, he instead vowed to
be a success, and succeeded! And then there came the baritone from the
Paris opera who heard her sister Phillipa's soprano voice at choir and
fell immediately and hopeless in love with her, and sought to train her
voice and carry her away. But no, he too could not melt the snows of
her near Arctic heart, and so returned to Paris where he played out his
(now) empty career.
Flash forward to the entrance of Babette, whom the opera singer sends
many years later to the sisters to hide from the strife in France. She
will be an angel of gastronomy, household management and common sense
who will mend their souls and fill them with joy.
This is a tale of unrequited love. Of love that festers and longs and
does not die. How I adore the love stories where the love is never
consummated! I love the years of yearning, the melancholy realization
that it could never work, and yet, and yet... And then when they are
old and past any pretense, how wonderful it is to know that the
anticipation, the savoring, the longing, the utter lack of finality,
how wonderful THAT was, and how superior to a banal consummation!
But then, such is not the usual taste. Speaking of tastes, this is not
a movie to see on an empty stomach. The climatic feast of turtle soup,
quail in pastry, rich sauces, dessert, fromage, fruit, etc., washed
down with amontillado, champagne, etc. will wet your appetite. A little
stunning for this modest epicure was the Clos de Vougeot, 1845 that the
general so admired. Can you imagine how beautiful that wine was, and
what it would fetch today!
This is also a tale of Christian piety, and a joining of the Protestant
and the Catholic, of how a Lutheran might learn from a Papist, of how
the temperate zone might warm the north. How food really is a
sacrament.
Anyway, we know from the moment Babette comes to the austere, but grand
old pious ladies to cook for them that she is something special. When
the ladies show her how to precisely prepare the mundane Danish meals
of bread soup and soaked, smoked flounder, we know immediately that she
is a great cook; after all she is Parisian, and an opera star has
signified her as such. But she modestly says not a word and learns the
Danish names and follows faithfully the Danish recipes, as though she
were an ingenue. She works for nothing, having lost her family to the
bloodshed in France, and what has she to live for but to do what she
has to do and do it right. And does she ever!
Babette's Feast is as heart-warming as a Disney tale would love to be.
It is as uplifting as a stirring Sousa march, and as satisfying as a
seven-course meal at the Grand Hotel in Paris, France. It starts like a
novel from the nineteenth century, slow and studied, and before you
know it, has captured your fancy. Director Gabriel Axel unfolds the
story with precision and a careful attention to detail, but ultimately
with an invisible simplicity and economy. What he is saying in the end,
is what he has the general pronounce after the sensuous meal (which is
quite a moral extravagance, perhaps even a sinfulness for the pious
flock): "Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another."
Someday, one hopes in this world, they shall.
47 out of 50 people found the following review useful:
A Movie to enchant the Angels, 10 October 2004
Author:
middleburg
Sublime--perfect--profound--a true lesson on the idealized meaning of
life. We get completely caught up in the life journeys of Martina and
Phillipa and
Babette. Their yearnings, desires, sacrifices resonant long after the
movie has ended. Seeing it years ago--as it was gaining a great deal of
notoriety at the audaciousness of its subject matter--half the movie
being a single dinner--the audience was "oohing and aahing" as some of
the courses took their final
glorious shape, laughing at the reaction of the diners, as they became
totally seduced by the gustatorial pleasures being introduced to them
by Babette, and being totally surprised at the turn of events at the
end of the film. Subsequently seeing the film years later after my own
twists and turns of life, I realized just how profound the film is. On
this viewing tears flowed freely. The film's
meditation on the passage of time and the way it uses a seemingly
simple story to comment on life and love and art and generosity is
truly something to
cherish.
25 out of 26 people found the following review useful:
A feast of cinema, 29 April 1999
Author:
Paul Arthur (pnarthur@msn.com) from London, England
Stephane Audran is the eponymous heroine of this beautifully measured study of a small Danish community towards the end of the last century. Two beautiful and musically talented sisters give-up their own prospects of happiness and marriage in order to look-after their ageing father. One day, a French woman, Babette, comes to work for them. After some years she wins the lottery and is determined to do something for the sisters who have taken her in. Her solution is to prepare an exquisite and sumptuous feast, which changes the lives of all those invited. This is a film about human and cultural interaction, reflected in the changing language of the dialogue from Danish to French, and especially between the dutiful sobriety of Protestant northern Europe and the sensuousness of the Catholic south. It is also about human needs, and how warmth and kindness can be expressed and stimulated through the cultivation of the senses. A profoundly uplifting film.
26 out of 29 people found the following review useful:
Consuming passion?, 9 January 2002
Author:
billy-44 from San Francisco, CA
"Babette's Feast" proves that not all film theories and formulas are true
100% of the time. Here's a story where there is no life-or-death
conflict,
no raging anger, no violent outbursts. Nothing blowed up real good, and
there is nothing resembling a chase scene. The conflict is about the ways
in which people can be nice to each other. Their personal differences of
passion or conviction are not as important as the ways in which they can
connect with each other.
How shockingly refreshing.
There is an undercurrent to this film that gives it the feel of a Garrison
Keillor monologue, in that it is built around people's personal foibles
and
quirks.
Even more refreshing is how "Babette's Feast" manages to be nice without
becoming cloying, saccharine, facile, superficial or insincere. People's
personal passions are portrayed not only from their own perspective, but
from the perspective of the people they affect, with more realism than you
usually get in film, yet also with sincere and infectious
optimism.
If you don't come away from "Babette's Feast" smiling and feeling better,
then you must have been distracted from giving it your full attention.
This
is one of those very rare films that you can recommend to everyone you
know.
It is truly in a class by itself. Like Mary Poppins, "Practically
perfect
in every way."
Utterly charming and subtly stunning.
24 out of 26 people found the following review useful:
Spare yet sumptuous, 29 September 2000
Author:
shrine-2
The dead spots and picture-postcard superficiality of "Out of Africa" just
about buried any interest I might have had to read Isak Dinesen. So when my
brother bought me "Babette's Feast," and knowing it was based on a Dinesen
story, I didn't exactly race to the VCR. But as the titles rolled, it
became clear that this was no ordinary movie. Jutland (where it's set) is
not Africa; the chill mist that collects on the camera shots is not
inviting. The cold, forbidding sea; the heavy, gray clouds; the pale, icy
green cliffs--translate to hardships that show on the faces over which
director Gabriel Axel draws the curtain. The craggiest is Bodil Kjer's as
Philippa; amid the myriad merits of this movie, the most memorable is that
face. It stands like a map laying before us the cherished wonder of her
minister father's apostolate; like a maze of long-overlooked fjords where
the complications of her congregation's perseverance and commitment hang
like gleaming escutcheons.
I gather it's Dinesen's point how the world is drawn inexplicably to
Christian dedication, when Philippa is rejected by her only serious suitor
(because he fears he'll never measure up to the rules and rigors of her
small religious clique), and he returns to find her mistress of whom he
regards as the greatest chef on the continent. I figure it's also her point
that Christ answers the doubts and regrets of those who give up worldly
success (Philippa's sister Martina rebuffs efforts by a visiting baritone
(Jean-Philippe Lafont whose jolliness creates an uplifting counterpoint to
the sparsity of spirit that surrounds his discovery) to turn her into an
opera star; the title character leaves France and an enviable reputation and
seeks sanctuary as the servant of two spinster sisters) to pursue artistic
triumphs for only God and those closest to Him to witness. But it's Axel
who weaves the asperity of these people's lives with the richness of
Martina's voice and Babette Hersant's table and effects a sumptuousness
you'd never expect from a movie about sacrifice, faith, and religious
conviction.
What sets this movie apart from other religious movies is its sly humor.
"Babette's Feast," that is, the banquet itself--a posthumous commemoration
of the minister's 100th birthday--is a beautifully orchestrated clash of
sensibilities that delivers comic moments by an ensemble of actors that are
unparalleled in their subtlety. It's just this deft comedy that enriches
the solemn sentiments at closing. Together they do something pious movies
seldom do. They leave a believer tremulously hopeful and unexpectedly
resolute and humbled.
24 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
The feast of life, 29 June 2001
Author:
dbdumonteil
This movie came aside as a shock in the eighties.Far from trends,that is to say in the heart of sincere creativity,Babettes gaestebud stands as one of the finest movies of its time.Stephane Audran,the wonderful actress of her ex-husband Claude Chabrol's greatest achievements (le boucher,la rupture,les noces rouges,all unqualified musts for movie buffs)gave a lifetime performance.To see her prepare with love and affection her meal is a feast for the eyes.All the people who saw this masterpiece actually tasted,ate Babette's culinary triumph. But the most moving part of the story is its conclusion:Babette was a great French chef,she was famous,now she found a new homeland but her heyday is behind her and she won't never be allowed to come back to her dear France.So the two old sisters do comfort her:In heaven,there will be huge kitchens where she cooks for eternity.While sharing her fortune with her new friends,Babette changed their life,she gave them pleasure and a magic evening they would remember forever.In this simple but extraordinary screenplay,human warmth is everywhere,and I wish everybody a Babette's feast,would it be only for one starry night...
21 out of 26 people found the following review useful:
Good Things (like a great meal) Come To Those Who Wait, 22 January 2007
Author:
ccthemovieman-1 from United States
If you find the first 30 minutes of this film to be so slow that you
wonder why you're watching it, don't give up. Also, hearing the Danish
language is a bit new to most North Americans, who don't see and hear a
lot of Danish films. Anyway, as the film progressed it got better and
better and the viewer is rewarded for his/her patience.
Being a fan of the movie, "Out Of Africa," this film piqued my interest
because it's based on a short novel by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), the
major character in that film.
The meal - Babette's feast - was amazing. I'm no chef, but I was
impressed! How one interprets the story, too, varies, I suppose
depending on how much you read into this, and where you stand
religion-wise. If the latter, how you look at the definition of
"legalism" can affect how you interpret this story.
In any case, it's a fine film, but don't watch this if you're dieting.
18 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
A French cook/housekeeper is sent to aid a pair of religious Danish sisters who have devoted their lives to the service of God and their small town., 18 January 1999
Author:
Glenn Starnes (gstarnes@nemw.org) from Washington, DC
This delicately told and moving story about the two devout daughters of a Danish Lutheran minister and their French servant is one of the finest European films of the 1980s. Set in a small, remote, austere Danish seaside town in the mid-19th century, the daughters devote their lives to continuing the work of their father in service of God, and in care for their needy townspeople. One of the daughters had turned down a promising opera career -- and the love of her French voice coach (a famous opera singer himself) -- to remain with her father and the town. Many years later the French singer sends a woman (Babette) -- who had lost her family in an outbreak of civil war -- to live with the sisters. She turns out to be an excellent cook, housekeeper and a shrewd shopper. The story culminates in a sumptuous feast prepared by Babette coinciding with a memorial to the reverend minister's 100th birthday. This delicious screenplay was adapted from the Isak Denisson (pen name for Karen Blixen) short story originally published in the Ladies Home Journal.
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