‘Babette’s Feast‘, a film written (after a story by Karen Blixen) and directed by Gabriel Axel, was a huge international hit in 1987 when it hit the screens, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film that year. I saw it now, 33 years later. I can understand many of the reasons for which the film was successful then, I also found in it many beautiful moments and messages about life and art that are valid today as much as in the year of production. At the same time, I can’t help but notice that the passage of time is, in the case of this film, painfully felt. ‘Babette’s Feast‘ approaches its topics in a cinematic style that even in the ’80s left too little freedom to the actors and channeled the story towards a moralising and conformist conclusion. If this film was today, it would have looked completely different.
The story captures three moments in time in a seaside village in the remote Jutland province of Denmark. A Protestant pastor established a Puritan community in the first half of the 19th century, leading a simple life close to the faith and its moral values. However, his own family is sacrificed on the altar of community life. His two beautiful daughters, coveted by all the young people in the village but also by the occasional visitors are discouraged from getting married. ‘Do you want me to renounce my left hand or my right hand?’ tells the pastor to one of the suitors. One of the girls has a beautiful voice and a talent that could make her one of the great opera singers in the world, but her path is also blocked. Not by force, not explicitly, but by education and mentality. Time passes, we are in 1871, the father died, the girls remained unmarried and their life is filled by good deeds. Among them is the sheltering of Babette (Stéphane Audran), a refugee from France in revolution and war. Another 14 years later, the community is reduced in numbers to about 10-12 parishioners, all old. Babette asks to prepare a festive French-style meal to honour the memory of the pastor born 100 years ago and now regarded as a saint. The feast will not only highlight the conflict between the Danish Puritan and the French Epicurean mentalities, but it will bring back memories in the characters’ minds and souls that will make them reflect on the meaning of going through life.
There are many beautiful ideas and interesting things to discuss about this story. Stéphane Audran‘s character retains a touch of mystery for most of the duration of the film. There will be a revelation about her in the end, but it cannot be said that it is unexpected. The other characters are even more transparent, and what happens to them is about what we predicted from the beginning. One of the problems I had watching ‘Babette’s Feast‘ was the fact that the acting style is theatrical and distant, and it was hard for me to empathise with the characters, even if that was the director’s intention. The cinematography and the sets are beautiful, nature seems hostile almost all the time, even when the sun shines we can feel the wind, the cold or the threat of rain that will not be late in coming. And the food – the dishes that are prepared and eaten on screen are beautiful and refined, which makes the film be cited in almost all the rankings that gather the movies dedicated to food. For me, however, watching this film was like eating at a feast where the food got a little cold.