Babette's Feast (1988)

Philosophical legend

As the title says, this legned was put on the background of french revolution, but its philosophical significance reaches far beyond, before and after that specific historic period. Issue has been probably pursued by human being since they became civilized gradually: what is the persistant value of life, relatively unchanged by uncertainty of world. The movie offers some clue for people to follow to practically explore in today's real world. July 17, 2008

Babette's Feast

Very interesting but a little hard to follow. We finished a bood study in church Sunday School Class on Heaven. the book referred to this book. July 7, 2008

yeah, very slow start

yeah, i'm agreeing with the latest reviews. I've watched one hour of the movie, and see that we're finally going to get to the meat (excuse the pun) of the story. I expect a better second half. The first half is very slow and fairly pointless. I understand they're setting up the story, but it should have been done in a half hour or less. I guess we're all impatient 21rst centuryers. (-: June 20, 2008

Gets better, but what an awful, awful beginning.

Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987)

Babette's Feast, 1987 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, starts off painfully slowly. While the movie does get quite good after that, I have to wonder whether the Academy simply fast-forwarded through the first half-hour of their screeners when deciding to give the award to this rather than, say, Au Revoir les Enfants. (But then, it was the eighties, when the Academy were collectively demented; anything was possible. I mean, come on, Reds won Best Pitcure.) I suggest you do the same, and stop when you finally meet Babette (Stephane Audran). Everything before that is setup, and it's not especially well-handled setup. In fact, it's not really handled at all. But then expatriate Babette wins the French lottery, and everything starts getting fun.

From there, the movie is a foodie's dream. It's like an episode of Iron Chef where there's only one competitor, a blaze of buying, cooking, serving, eating, all of which takes subtle digs at the conventions of the time (which are obvious during the scenes; you don't need the setup for anything other than knowing who's at the table). Wonderful. In other words, watch the last hour of the film and be entertained. The first half-hour, though, feels more like dragging yourself naked along a glacier. ** ½ May 30, 2008

Oh what a Feast...struggled with wrapper around it

2 beautiful sisters who live in a desolate region of Denmark pass up chances for marriage, stage performance and seeing the world in exchange for caring for their aging and pious Father.

A French war refugee (Babette) flees Paris after her husband and child are murdered and she stays with the sisters and works for them as a cook/maid. Babette wins the lotto (keep in mind this is 19th century setting) and she decides to spend her largess on preparing a feast for the town to celebrate the Father's 100th year. The town believes that she and the dinner are evil temptations and they are wary.

This movie is slow and you need to hang in there up to the dinner prep scenes. The build-up to the dinner scenes seem lightly connected if at all to the main event. That being said, the dinner prep and the dinner were riveting and a must-see movie experience. The setting, including the buildings, the furnishing, the characters, the costumes, the wildlife and the ocean front - all beautiful cinematography.
May 22, 2008

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