Rating: 
Summary: NOTHING HAPPENS AND EVERYTHING HAPPENS
Review: If you describe this movie to a friend you say a French lady cooks a fabulous dinner for a religious sect. But it is oh so much more. Two ladies have given up fame and marriage to remain with their father, a leader of a religious sect in a Danish village. When he dies they continue to do good works for the townsfolk and are asked to give shelter to a French refugee. She changes their lives and the lives of the villagers. When she wins the lottery she spends it all on a sumptious feast. This is a wonderful movie that flashes back into the early lives of the two daughters and the dinner sequence is terrific. Not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: A bittersweet, redemptive northern masterpiece
Review: Take the style of Ingmar Bergman, stir in some Lutheranism, add a dash of Guy De Maupassant, a pinch of Chekov (such a severe and forbidding brew!). Mix well with the grand cuisine of nineteenth century France and what do you have? Babette's Feast!Our story (from an Isak Dinesen short story) is of two lovely maiden sisters from Jutland, the pious daughters of a stern and dictatorial minister, who spurn their chance for love to remained devoted to their austere Protestant creed and to their puritanical and selfish father. We are subjected to the bleak, harsh winters, to the endless hours of knitting, to the long silences and the sighs upon sighs... Ah, the Danes, the Norwegians, the Swedes, how beautifully they brood! We see the barren beauty of Martina, who so enchanted the young cavalryman that when he could not melt her cold, cold heart, he instead vowed to be a success, and succeeded! And then there came the baritone from the Paris opera who heard her sister Phillipa's soprano voice at choir and fell immediately and hopeless in love with her, and sought to train her voice and carry her away. But no, he too could not melt the snows of her near Arctic heart, and so returned to Paris where he played out his (now) empty career. Flash forward to the entrance of Babette, whom the opera singer sends many years later to the sisters to hide from the strife in France. She will be an angel of gastronomy, household management and common sense who will mend their souls and fill them with joy. This is a tale of unrequited love. Of love that festers and longs and does not die. How I adore the love stories where the love is never consummated! I love the years of yearning, the melancholy realization that it could never work, and yet, and yet... And then when they are old and past any pretense, how wonderful it is to know that the anticipation, the savoring, the longing, the utter lack of finality, how wonderful THAT was, and how superior to a banal consummation! But then, such is not the usual taste. Speaking of tastes, this is not a movie to see on an empty stomach. The climatic feast of turtle soup, quail in pastry, rich sauces, dessert, fromage, fruit, etc., washed down with amontillado, champagne, etc. will wet your appetite. A little stunning for this modest epicure was the Clos de Vougeot, 1845 that the general so admired. Can you imagine how beautiful that wine was, and what it would fetch today! This is also a tale of Christian piety, and a joining of the Protestant and the Catholic, of how a Lutheran might learn from a Papist, of how the temperate zone might warm the north. How food really is a sacrament. Anyway, we know from the moment Babette comes to the austere, but grand old pious ladies to cook for them that she is something special. When the ladies show her how to precisely prepare the mundane Danish meals of bread soup and soaked, smoked flounder, we know immediately that she is a great cook; after all she is Parisian, and an opera star has signified her as such. But she modestly says not a word and learns the Danish names and follows faithfully the Danish recipes, as though she were an ingenue. She works for nothing, having lost her family to the bloodshed in France, and what has she to live for but to do what she has to do and do it right. And does she ever! Babette's Feast is as heart-warming as a Disney tale would love to be. It is as uplifting as a stirring Sousa march, and as satisfying as a seven-course meal at the Grand Hotel in Paris, France. It starts like a novel from the nineteenth century, slow and studied, and before you know it, has captured your fancy. Director Gabriel Axel unfolds the story with precision and a careful attention to detail, but ultimately with an invisible simplicity and economy. What he is saying in the end, is what he has the general pronounce after the sensuous meal (which is quite a moral extravagance, perhaps even a sinfulness for the pious flock): "Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another." Someday, one hopes in this world, they shall.
Rating:
Summary: Simply wonderful...
Review: This thoroughly enjoyable film has already received so many eloquent reviews here that my humble appraisal can hardly add anything novel. Yet, I'm tempted to record yet another testimony in favor of this unique work of art. Its tranquility is graceful; its beauty - subdued yet striking. A very special treat, indeed!
Rating:
Summary: A film feast
Review: A shared meal brings grace and joy. An artist/cook gives all she has for a feast, two sisters, and her art. This quiet beautifully filmed movie hushes the mind and directly engages the viewer. A favorite film.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite movie.
Review: It seems here that I'm "preaching to the choir", but I must encourage anyone who has not seen this film to purhcase it instantly! A more enduring work cannot be found to add to your collection. You will return many, many times to savor this poignant and compelling drama. No matter what your taste in films runs to, this film will suprise and delight you. Don't fear! This is not just for a "highbrow" audience. I have shown this to people who usually can't abide a movlie that doesn't invovle sex, guns and rock and roll. Believe it or not, they can't resist it. Within minutes, they are drawn into the life of this tiny Danish village and are held breathless to the end. The tension, the passion and the immense scope of the story is irresistable. Take the plunge. Try something completely different. You won't regret it!
Rating:
Summary: guaranteed to make you want to eat a birdbrain
Review: This is one of the most beautifully hushed, lyrical and emotionally intense films i've ever seen. By emotionally intense i don't mean our american version where everyone is overacting and yelling and screaming and crying all over the place. The quality of emotional exposition here is written on the face, in the eyes, in the gentle movements of the characters and the camera; in the silences and the landscapes. It's a work of art that any culture or generation should be able to relate to about loss and healing, about the sensual beauty of food and the sensuality of unattainable love. It's.. well i could go on, but in the end, it's so seductive one is even willing to countenance the idea of eating a bird brain.
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Summary: A visual masterpiece !
Review: I've read most of these reviews, and I can't improve upon them. But reading them brings a flood of awe back to me. An Absolutely mesmorizing feast for the eyes !
Rating:
Summary: A Magical Clasic
Review: I have introduced this film to six friends now and each one of them has bought it. I have very few videos in my library, but this is one. I have watched it about once evry year amd every time, I find some new revelation and enjoy it just as much as the first time, or more... like a fine Bergman film, such as the Virgin Spring, this is magical.
Rating:
Summary: another example of perfection
Review: "Babette's feast" is another example of subtle filmmaking inherited from the way bergman & dreyer used to "look" at everyday things. in fact, some of their favourite actors-actresses are featured here. this film is about how fate can somehow fill people's lives with small joys and how to appreciate these. fine description of characters is given, as well as a strong sense of destiny -as lutheran people have always considered. every single thing in this movie keeps the story going onwards, there's nothing useless to the plot. a gentle, elegant and challenging masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: A true gem. Very poignant.
Review: First off, let me say that this is definitely a "slow" film by US standards. However, if you appreciate terrific cinematography, and very intelligent but subtle humor, you will love this film. It also goes without saying that anyone that is a true connoisseur of food will also "relish" this film. The ending is bittersweet, where it touches upon feelings about life in general, how to appreciate the little things, how life is so precious, and how to deal with regret.
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