Gabriel Axel directed one of film’s greatest ‘foodie’ movies, Babette’s Feast. In the late 1800s, Babette (Stéphane Audran), a Catholic and French woman fleeing persecution in Paris, arrives in a very small, very remote Dutch village to become the maid/servant/cook for two spinster sisters – Filippa (Bodil Kjer) and Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) – who’s father is the village’s Protestant minister. She has in hand a letter of introduction from a General in the Swedish army who once courted one of the sisters and begins her daily routine. The years pass and Babette prepares bland porridges and pours endless glasses of water for the sisters and their small congregation. Then, one day, a letter arrives announcing she has won the French lottery. Babette asks the sisters’ permission to prepare a celebratory dinner and they reluctantly agree worried what the foreigner may serve. On the day of the meal, the guests arrive determined not to be swayed by the beautiful meal but remain stanch in their belief that dining is but a means to an end, not an end in itself. But as the courses proceed in their glorious gluttony, the guests forget their determination and the joy and jolly of good food and wine takes hold. The General who originally sent Babette to the house all those years ago is in attendance and it is he who then relates the story of a famed Parisian chef who ran the Café Anglais – a chef who is in fact, Babette.
Babette’s Feast won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1987. It is a stunningly quiet film in the vein of the great Ingmar Bergman that brilliantly juxtaposes the realities of two faiths when they collide in the passion that is dining.
My rating 9 out of 10.
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