Babette's Feast
| Babette's Feast | |
|---|---|
 1987 Movie Poster by Rolf Konow |
|
| Directed by | Gabriel Axel |
| Produced by | Just Betzer Bo Christensen Benni Korzen Pernille Siesbye |
| Written by | Gabriel Axel Karen Blixen |
| Starring | Stéphane Audran Birgitte Federspiel Bodil Kjer |
| Music by | Per Nørgård |
| Cinematography | Henning Kristiansen |
| Editing by | Finn Henriksen |
| Release date(s) |  August 28, 1987 March 4, 1988 |
| Running time | 102 min. |
| Country | Denmark |
| Language | Danish Swedish French |
Babette's Feast (Danish: 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 cinema film of a Blixen story. It was also the first Danish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.[1]
Contents |
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. 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. Martina's former suitor, now a general, reappears as a guest. As the only person at the table able to comment on the meal, he provides the viewer with explicit information about the extraordinary quality of the food and drink, culminating in a brief reflective speech. Although the other 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[2], 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 allotted to them, and they did not even wonder at the fact, for it had been but the fulfillment of an ever-present hope."[3]
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Ghita Nørby | Narrator |
| Stéphane Audran | Babette Hersant |
| Bodil Kjer | Filippa |
| Hanne Stensgaard | Filippa (as girl) |
| Birgitte Federspiel | Martine |
| Vibeke Hastrup | Martine (as girl) |
| Jean-Philippe Lafont | Achille Papin |
| Jarl Kulle | General Lorens Löwenhielm |
| Gudmar Wivesson | Lorens Löwenhielm (as young man) |
| Bibi Andersson | Swedish Court Lady |
| Bendt Rothe | Old Nielsen |
| Lisbeth Movin | The Widow |
| Preben Lerdorff Rye | The Captain |
| Cay Kristiansen | Poul |
| Axel Strøbye | The Driver |
| Erik Petersen | Erik, the boy |
| Ebbe Rode | Christopher |
| Ebba With | General's aunt |
| Pouel Kern | The Sister's father |
| Else Petersen | Solveig |
| Finn Nielsen | The Store manager |
| Holger Perfort | Karlsen |
| Asta Esper Andersen | Anna |
| Therese Højgaard Christensen | Martha, young girl |
| Lars Lohmann | Fisherman |
| Tine Miehe-Renard | The General's wife |
| Thomas Antoni | Swedish Lieutenant |
| Gert Bastian | Poor Man |
| Viggo Bentzon | Boatman |
| Tina Kiberg | Filippa's song voice |
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
- ^ "Babette's Gæstebud". Danish Film Institute.
- ^ [1]
- ^ "Babette's Feast", in Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard, c. 1993, Vintage International Paperbacks.
External links
- Babette's Feast at the Arts & Faith Top100 Spiritually Significant Films list
- An extensive collection of links about Babette's Feast at KarenBlixen.com
- Babettes Gæstebud at the Danish Film Institute (in Danish)
- Babettes Gæstebud at IMDb
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by The Assault |
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 1987 |
Succeeded by Pelle the Conqueror |
| Preceded by The Sacrifice |
BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language 1988 |
Succeeded by Life and Nothing But |
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