Movie No. 70 (2017): BABETTE'S FEAST

Babette's Feast (1987)
Director: Gabriel Axel
Cast; Stephane Audran, Bodil Kjer, Birgitte Federspiel
In Danish and French, with English subtitles

"Feast" suggests food. Yes, there's feast, and there are foods in the movie. But, the movie is not about food. Foods, in this case, are a metaphor. Foods may represent temptation or worldly aspirations, which the people of the remove island village in Denmark reject. The movie's cinematic achievement is right there in the feast, where the dinner guests are transformed into personifications of guilt, regret, and hope at different stages of the dinner. 

Babette prepared the extravagant dinner. She was introduced earlier in the movie as the stranger fleeing the French Civil War; she ended up as housemaid and cook, serving the spinster sisters whose father was a preacher who everybody in the island revered. Babette was referred to the sisters by the rejected past lover of one of the sisters.

This is my second time to see the movie in full. Just like the first time, I feel attached to some of the dialogues which I think are central to the narrative:

"Like the wedding at Canaa, the food is of no importance."

"An artist is never poor."

"Through the world sounds one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me the chance to do my very best."

The movie is one of my favorite movies of all time. In fact, I consider it one of the greatest movies ever made.

Rating: 4.0/4.0

Date seen: September 30, 2017