Babette's Feast

Infobox_Film
name = Babette's Feast


caption = 1987 Movie Poster by Rolf Konow
director = Gabriel Axel
producer = Just Betzer Bo Christensen Benni Korzen Pernille Siesbye
writer = Gabriel Axel Karen Blixen
starring = Stéphane Audran Birgitte Federspiel Bodil Kjer
music = Per Nørgård
cinematography = Henning Kristiansen
editing = Finn Henriksen
distributor =
released = flagicon|Denmark August 28, 1987
flagicon|USA March 4, 1988
runtime = 102 min.
country = Denmark
language = Danish Swedish French
budget =
imdb_id = 0092603|

"Babette's Feast" ( _da. Babettes gæstebud) is a 1987 Danish film written and directed by Gabriel Axel. The film is based on a story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), who also wrote the story which inspired the 1985 Academy Award winning film "Out of Africa". Produced by Just Betzer, Bo Christensen, and Benni Korzen with funding from the Danish Film Institute, "Babette's Feast" was the first Danish production of a Blixen story. It was also the first Danish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. [cite web
title = Babette's Gæstebud
publisher = Danish Film Institute
url = http://dnfx.dfi.dk/pls/dnf/pwt.page_setup?p_pagename=dnffuldvis&p_parmlist=filmid=12]

Plot

"Babette's Feast" starts with a portrait of two elderly and pious Christian sisters. The sisters, Martina (named for Martin Luther) and Philippa (named for Luther's friend and biographer Philip Melanchthon), live in a small village on the remote and beautiful, but also barren and chilly, western coast of Jutland in the 19th century. Philippa (Bodil Kjer) and Martina (Birgitte Federspiel) are the daughters of a pastor who founded his own strict Christian sect, whose members over the years moved into his premises, which in turn evolved into what was for all practical purposes a charity retirement home. Though the pastor himself has long since died, and the sect draws no new converts, the aging sisters preside lovingly over their dwindling brood of white-haired, rural resident believers.Next the film drops back in time to depict how each sister was, in her youth, a ravishing beauty. Each is courted by an impassioned suitor visiting Jutland: Martina by a charming but dissolute young officer of the Swedish cavalry, and Philippa by a melancholic star baritone from the Paris opera. Each suitor falls desperately in love, and develops grand plans both for himself and the "angel" he imagines by his side on the road to worldly renown. But each daughter eventually deflects her pursuer, choosing, instead, a life of quiet piety and Puritanical simplicity in their father's footsteps.

Many years later, when the sisters are in their fifties, Babette Hersant (Stéphane Audran) appears at their door. She carries only a letter from Philippa's former suitor, explaining that she is a refugee from revolutionary bloodshed in Paris, and recommending her as a housekeeper. The sisters take Babette in, and she spends fourteen years as their cook, a modest but benign figure who gradually eases their lives and the lives of many in the remote village. Her only link to her former life is a lottery ticket that a friend in Paris renews for her every year. One day, she wins the lottery and decides to use the money to prepare a delicious dinner for the sisters and their small congregation on the occasion of the founding pastor's hundredth birthday. More than just an epicurean delight, the feast is an outpouring of Babette's appreciation, an act of self-sacrifice with eucharistic echoes; though she doesn't tell anyone, Babette is spending her entire winnings on her gesture of gratitude.

The sisters agree to accept Babette's meal, and she sends for a sumptuous shopping list of ingredients (including a live sea turtle, quail, numerous wines, fine china and crystal) to her native France. But as they arrive, the sisters begin to worry that the meal will be, at best, a great sin of sensual luxury, and at worst some form of devilry or witchcraft. In a hasty conference, the sisters and the congregation agree to eat the meal, but to forego any pleasure in it, and to make no mention of the food during the entire dinner. The last and most relevant part of the film is the preparation of the meal itself, and the serving of an extraordinary banquet of royal dimensions lavishly deployed in the unpainted austerity of the sisters' rustic home. The film, previously showing mainly winterly whites and grays, gradually picks up more and more colours, focusing on the various and delectable dishes, a feast for the spectator as well. Although the celebrants do their best to reject the earthly pleasures of the food and drink, Babette's extraordinary gifts as a "Chef de Cuisine" and a true "connoisseur", so characteristically French [ [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/french#Adjective] ] , breaks their distrust and superstitions, elevating them not only physically but spiritually. Old wrongs are forgotten, ancient loves are rekindled, and a mystical redemption of the human spirit settles over the table — thanks to the general elation nurtured by the consumption of so many fine culinary delicacies and spirits. The eucharistic, albeit mundane celebration around the table shadows the "infinite grace… [that] had been alloted to them, and they did not even wonder at the fact, for it had been but the fulfillment of an ever-present hope." ["Babette's Feast", in "Anecdotes of Destiny" and "Ehrengard", c. 1993, Vintage International Paperbacks. ]

Cast

Awards

"Babette's Feast" won the 1988 Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards; the other nominees were "Asignatura aprobada" of Spain, "Au revoir, les enfants" of France, "La Famiglia" of Italy and "Ofelas" of Norway. It also won a BAFTA Film Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Foreign Language Film. It won both the Bodil and Robert awards for Best Danish Film of the Year.

Popular culture

*One of Gary Larson's "Far Side" cartoons showed a group of grimacing people in beds in a hospital ward. It was titled: "Babette's Botulism: The Sequel".

*In the Colm Toibin novel "The Blackwater Lightship", one of the characters mentions the film in conversation.

References

External links

*" [http://artsandfaith.com/t100/2005/entry.php?film=7 Babette's Feast] " at the [http://artsandfaith.com/top100/ Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films] list
* [http://www.karenblixen.com/babette.html An extensive collection of links about "Babette's Feast"] at KarenBlixen.com
* [http://dnfx.dfi.dk/pls/dnf/pwt.page_setup?p_pagename=dnffuldvis&p_parmlist=filmid=12 "Babettes Gæstebud"] at the Danish Film Institute (in Danish)
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092603/ Babettes Gæstebud] at IMDb

###@@@KEY@@@###succession box
title=Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
years=1987
before="The Assault"
after="Pelle the Conqueror"succession box
title=BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language
years=1988
before="The Sacrifice"
after="Life and Nothing But"