When Babette’s Feast somewhat unexpectedly won the 1987 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, it was a triumph, in a way, for women in the filmmaking industry. The story of the film was based on a short story by Isak Dinesen, which sounds like a man, but whose real name is Karen Blixen. (The same story was also used, by the way, as the basis for a very different kind of film called Out of Africa (1985), starring Meryl Streep as Dinesen.) The film script was written by Gabriel Axel, who also directed the film. And, the three lead parts all belonged to women – and older women at that.

Babette’s Feast certainly ranks as one of the top examples of films using food as a significant motif, along with such other examples as Like Water For Chocolate (1992), Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), and Chocolat (2000). Babette’s Feast was the first of these and therefore could be claimed as the trend maker in this category. As it happens, the short story Babette’s Feast was written by Blixen as a result of a bet she had made with a friend who argued that the best way to gain entry into the American market was to write about food. By now, her friend must have won that bet several time over.

The Story: The setting for this film is a small bleak coastal village on the rough Danish coastline in the 19th century. This little community was formed by the congregation of a now-deceased minister and prophet, who had organized an austere Calvinist religious sect based on renunciation of sensual pleasures. The minister, who had married late in life, had produced two lovely daughters, Philippa (Hanna Stensgaard) and Martina (Vibeke Hastrup), who had become as devout as their father and his chief aid in his mission. By their beauty and purity, each was highly sought after by the young men of the village as well as outside suitors. Martina had been the object of passionate desire of a dashing young officer Lorens Lowenhielm (Gudmar Wivesson), who had come to the village to stay with his aunt. He had seen her going about her chores, had immediately fallen in love with her, and had worked his way into the prayer circle to be near her. Ultimately, however, he had realized that he has no chance, acknowledging as he departed in resignation, “Some things are impossible.”

For her part, Philippa had been loved by Achille Papin (Jean-Philippe Lafont), a famous opera singer from Paris who had come to the village for rest and relaxation, staying at the grocer’s house. Papin had fallen for Philippa both because of her beauty and her lovely singing voice. He was convinced that she could become a great diva with a little training. She had taken singing lessons from him but had become frightened by his attentions and romantic intensity and, likely, her own feelings as well. She had asked her father to discontinue the singing lessons. Like Lowenhielm, Papin had been forced to retreat empty handed. Both sisters had forsaken the call of love and both, instead, remained devoted to their father, the Vicar. There is no sense, in this film, of undue manipulation or control on the part of the father, at least beyond the deep piety that had been ingrained in the two daughters from birth. They were genuinely devout and their respective decisions seemed fully in accord with their truest natures.

The film then picks up the story again thirty-five years later, by which time both Philippa (Bodil Kjer) and Martina (Birgitte Federspiel) have grown old as spinsters, having devoted their lives to caring for what remained of their father’s dwindling congregation, delivering food to the poor and infirm. Into this quiet life a new force arrives in the form of Babette (Stephane Aubran). She appears at their doorstep in the midst of a downpour, with a letter of introduction from Achille Papin, seeking their aid and shelter. Her husband and children had been slaughtered in Paris by the Communards and she barely escaped with her life. She asks to work for them as a servant. They have no money to pay her and can offer only room and board. She works for them on this basis, preparing their simple meals of ale-bread and boiled fish.

Another fourteen years go by with Babette continuing in the employ of the sisters and having earned a warm place in the hearts of this remote community. One day, a letter comes from Paris informing Babette that she has won 10,000 francs in the French lottery. Babette asks for permission from the sisters to prepare a French feast for the up-coming celebration of their deceased father’s 100th birthday. They agree and when Babette further insists that she be allowed to pay for it herself, they again agree, though reluctantly. Later, they begin to have second thoughts, especially when the preparations for the feast take on something of an aura of a pagan feast, which seems in direct conflict with their father’s teachings. The entire congregation (about ten people) will be attending the feast. They agree among themselves that they will not speak a word about the food or drink so as not to be lead astray from the true meaning of the celebration. They will even repress their taste sensitivity. Lowenhielm, now a General, gets added to the guest list as well, since he will be again visiting his aunt.

The entire film to this point has been essentially a set-up for the one climatic and cathartic event – Babette’s feast. The story thus far has built up an intense incongruity between the guests and the feast. The philosophy of self-denial versus the hedonistic pleasures of a French feast! When the day arrives, the table is set with linen, candles, silver, and fine glassware. Babette has imported all of the finest wines and gourmet ingredients from Paris and the final half-hour of the film follows the preparation and consumption of the feast in exquisite and vivid detail.

Babette, through the feast, provides the community with an amazing gift – the gift of communion via the senses with the natural world of food stuffs, spices, and wines. General Lowenhielm, who is the only one of the guests not party to the conspiracy of silence, is beside himself with praise and awe for each successive item in the seven course feast. He alone among the guests understands the fine quality of the wines and the epicurean splendor of the foods, though the others intuit as much by the excitement of their senses. Though all but the General withhold their praises, all are obviously sensually stunned. Amazingly, rather than interfering with their spirituality, the pleasuring of their senses has the inverse effect, assuaging old animosities and stimulating some tender moments of warm feelings. It may be the father’s 100th birthday, but his theory of the necessity of foregoing worldly pleasures has taken something of a beating. Later, we learn that Babette was once the head chef at the famous Café Anglais in Paris.

Themes: The main theme of this film is the exploration of the relationship and/or conflict between sensuality and spirituality. This film argues, in effect, that the two are not truly in opposition. The argument works just as well for those who are conventionally religious and those who are nonbelievers. For believers, the argument is that sensuality is simply experiencing God’s creative works. For non-believers, sensuality provides the basis of experiencing the universe in which we all dwell and from which we each spring as temporarily individualized entities.

This film also explores, as a corollary of the main theme, the role of art (visual, auditory, or gustatory) in spirituality. Art is human creativity that targets the senses, facilitating communion with the world around us and deepening spirituality – just as Babette’s feast was able to do for the sisters’ congregation. Movies, for example, as an art form can titillate the senses but (the best movies) also stimulate insights about essential questions of meaning.

Another theme of Babette’s Feast relates to the issue of choices and paths not taken. With every choice, something is lost and something is gained. This film respects the choice of piety and devotion that the two sisters made and doesn’t cheapen that free choice by having them stirred into ambivalence as young women or regret as older women by their encounters with men who adore them.

Production Values: Amazingly, Axel has created a highly entertaining and sensually satisfying film without sex, nudity, youthful beauty, violence, or even very much humor. With little more than hymns and preaching, quiet scenes of daily living, and mainly graying actors and actresses over fifty-five years of age, Axel has defied the conventions of Hollywood to produce an engrossing film.

By placing the events of the film in an austere setting of small cottages with gray stone exteriors, Axel has found a way to accentuate the beauty of nature (this film features two of the loveliest sunsets you’ll ever see on film) and highlight the rich features and skin colors of the visages of her characters. Then, later in the film, the simple interiors of the sisters’ home provide the same function to offset the colorful splendor of the feast.

Another interesting trick employed by Axel is heavy use of a narrator throughout the first half of the film, keeping viewers at a distance from the characters, in effect, and thereby adding to the austerity of the community. Then, Axel retires the narrator for most of the second half of the film and especially during the feast, to allow viewers more direct sensual experience of the characters and events. As their senses awaken, so do ours.

The soundtrack consists mainly of lovely period music composed by Per Norgaard (except for the operatic excerpts from Mozart’s Don Giovanni).

The largely mature contingent of actors and actresses appearing in Babette’s Feast delivered restrained but highly nuanced performances. Stephane Audran who played Babette was an accomplished French star and wife of French director Claude Chabrol. She appeared in such films as Bad Girls (1968), Le Boucher (1969), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), and Coup de Torchon (1981). Birgitte Federspiel who played the elderly Martina appeared forty years earlier in the film Ordet (1955). I haven’t seen Ordet, but it is hard to believe that she could have looked substantially more beautiful in that film than she appears in Babette’s Feast. Both she and Bodil Kjer, who played the elderly Philippa, prove that beauty does not always fade with age. Jarl Kulle, who played the elderly General Lorenz Lowenhielm, appeared in Ingmar Bergman films, including Fanny and Alexander (1982). Another old Bergman favorite (as well as a favorite of my own), Bibi Andersson, had only a cameo role in Babette’s Feast, but some viewers will remember her fondly from The Seventh Seal as well as Wild Strawberries.

Bottom-Line: Babette’s Feast provides a very strong and original story, well-developed characters, fine performances, and a sumptuous treat for the viewers senses and spirit. Besides garnering the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1987, it also took the award from the British Academy Award for best film of 1987. This film is in Danish with English subtitles. It is rated G and has a running time of 102 minutes. This is a very satisfying film that can’t help but to please. You might want to have a bag of popcorn on hand; otherwise, gastric acid is likely to eat through the lining of your stomach during the feast scene.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Denmark:

Celebration
Dancer in the Dark
Day of Wrath
Gertrud
The Kingdom
The Kingdom II
Passion of Joan of Arc
Pelle The Conqueror
Vampyr

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12