Babette’s Feast (1987)

“The delectable Babette’s Feast is a fable told with passion, intelligence and sumptuousness. Although it certainly has a feast at its center, it would be a mistake to think that its tribute is intended only for great cooks. No, it’s a deep reverence to all great artists–whether they make books, bowls or ballets, baskets, quilts, songs, poems, paintings . . . or films.” — Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times

SYNOPSIS

Food becomes an expression of art, generosity, and grace in Gabriel Axel’s exquisite Babette’s Feast, the first Danish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Adapted from a story by Karen Blixen, the film follows two elderly sisters living in a remote nineteenth-century Danish village whose austere religious existence is quietly transformed by Babette, a French refugee who becomes their housekeeper and cook. When an unexpected stroke of fortune allows Babette to prepare a lavish dinner for the sisters and their small congregation, the kitchen fills with an astonishing procession of ingredients, wines, sauces, and delicacies utterly foreign to a community accustomed to denying itself earthly pleasure. Axel lingers lovingly over the preparation and consumption of the meal, gradually turning gastronomy into something approaching a sacrament as old resentments soften, conversation flourishes, and the pleasures of the senses become inseparable from spiritual communion. A particular favorite of Pope Francis, who cited its climactic feast in his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Babette’s Feast is a warm, sensuous celebration of the extraordinary things that can happen when great food is prepared not merely to nourish others, but to give them joy.

Babette’s Feast screens as part of our limited series, Giving Thanks, celebrating three forms of holiday communion: food, music, and homecoming.