Babette’s Feast (1987)
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Babette’s Feast Movie Review
Babette’s Feast is a 1987 Danish historical drama film directed by Gabriel Axel and starring Stephane Audran. It’s a perfectly solid, but overrated Oscar winner.
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“In Paradise you will be the great artist that God meant you to be.
Ah, how you will delight the angels!“
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The main problem I’ve had with the film is the story itself as the technical aspects are impressive across the board, but more on them later. So the film follows two Danish sisters living in a small 19th century village. They take a French worker in and she eventually organizes a huge, expensive dinner in their honor.
That’s it. Literally, this is the simplest foreign film probably of them all I’ve seen so far. I do like simple films, but this is overly simplistic even for me. I do get that the film is thematically rich to some critics, but to me it isn’t because the themes aren’t well realized at all and the film leaves an impression that it’s just a simple, cozy historical drama with nothing more on its mind.
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Another major problem are the characters. I wouldn’t say they are badly developed as both sisters and Babette leave an impression and the three are so charming and wonderful souls. But, the characters needed much more work and especially their relationships together to make the film work more. And because the film has time-jumping, padding at times, sometimes rushed and simply bad structure, the characters never really come alive and thus the emotional connection was lost on me personally.
Babette’s Feast is a glorious feast for the eyes; there is no denying that the visuals are its biggest praise-worthy aspect. The cinematography is frequently stunning as the film is so well composed, shot and approached with many shots and takes being wallpaper-worthy and highly artistic. The costumes are reliably grounded, historically accurate and simply wonderful. The same goes for both exteriors and interiors. It’s just a wonderfully cozy, beautiful to watch film.
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The same goes for its score which is also very good. The direction is also solid as is the acting with terrific performances across the board. And I also respected that they chose French and Swedish actors to play their respective national parts. The dialogue is also pretty good. But the film relies too much on food in its third act and that’s great for history and food aficionados, but it’s thus limited in appeal to the rest of us. It is a famous, Oscar-winning Danish film, but I just found it solid and never anything more than that. It’s basically a Scandinavian ‘Chocolat’.
Babette’s Feast is a glorious treat for the eyes with accomplished cinematography, many amazing shots and beautiful costumes. The film also features terrific acting performances and it’s just a really cozy, very charming historical drama. However, it relies too much on food leading to a limited in appeal film. It’s also very slow and badly structured, seriously affecting the character development. It’s also a film that is overly simplistic and I personally found it thematically void and sorely uneventful. In the end, it’s perfectly solid and rather sweet, but otherwise highly overrated.
