Babette's Feast
by Gabriel Axel
List Price:
Our Price: $15.63
You Save: $4.36 (22%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.21 (click here)
Category: VHS Video
See more movie releases
Buy this VHS video movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Birgitte Federspiel, Bodil Kjer, Jarl Kulle, Jean-Philippe Lafont, St?phane AudranDirector: Gabriel Axel
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: Danish (Original Language); French (Original Language); Swedish (Original Language)
Format: NTSC
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Publisher: Orion Home Video
Studio: Orion Home Video
VHS Movie Reviews of Babette's Feast
Movie Review: The cooking is fine, but the movie is about love, wisdom and friendship...without sentimentality
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't know whether this film hits my heart the way it does because of the feelings of friendship, love, closeness to others or the warmth of that transformation Babette's cooking creates, but when the feast starts and for the rest of the movie, I choke up often.
Yes, this is a feel-good movie, but without a speck of mawkishness or facile sentimentality. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed. Babette's Feast tells its story with restraint and care, and it lets us discover for ourselves the values of grace and love. All we need to know is that Babette Harsant (Stephane Audran) was a French refugee who was given shelter by two aging sisters in a tiny community on the coast of Jutland. The sisters lead what remains of their father's flock. He was a pastor of conviction who taught that salvation comes through self-denial. The sisters made their sacrifices to duty and faith. Those who still remain honor the now long dead pastor's teachings and his spiritual guidance. Still, as they have grown older the tiny community has become querulous and argumentative. The sisters do what they can. For the pastor's 100th birthday, Babette wishes to cook the dinner for the small group the sisters will invite. The sisters reluctantly agree, but when they see the supplies Babette has ordered, they and their guests become uneasy. They are used to the community's usual fare of dried cod, boiled, and a soup made of bread, water and a little ale. Even though Babette over time has made improvements, what they are seeing now seems close to godlessness. At the dinner also will be a visitor, General Lorens Lowenhielm, who years earlier had chosen ambition over his love for one of the sisters.
What do we experience? There is the austerity of the aging community's faith and the stone, wind-swept cottages they live in. There is the warmth by candlelight of the sisters' small, crowded dining room. And then there is the transforming power of Babette's artistry as we watch her cook, watch Erik, a young boy helping her, serve and pour, and watch the old parishioners, with the help of fine wine and exquisite cooking, gradually rediscover their community and love and friendship. The General serves as our unexpected guide because he is the only one who knows what extraordinary dishes they are eating. The General tells a story to his uncomprehending dinner companions, a story about a famed woman who was the exemplary chef at the famed Caf? Anglais in Paris. "...this woman, this head chef, had the ability to transform a dinner into a kind of love affair...a love affair that made no distinction between bodily appetite and spiritual appetite." He, too, is being transformed into a man who will accept what he has become and yet will always know the value and the love of what long ago he chose not to accept. An old couple kiss. Two old men remember past friendships. And Babette, who spent all that she had won in a lottery on this dinner, has had an opportunity to be the artist she once was in France, an opportunity she accepted with love and friendship.
Babette, now as poor as she was when she arrived penniless years earlier, will continue with the sisters. The general in a carriage with his aunt returns to her estate. And the elderly guests leave the sisters' home to return to their own cottages. They pause and look at the clear night sky and the stars overhead. They spontaneously hold hands in a circle and dance and sing this hymn...
"The clock strikes and time goes by
Eternity is nigh.
Let us use this time to try
To serve the Lord with heart and mind.
So that our true home we shall find.
So that our true home we shall find."
They smile at each other. All has been reconciled.
Babette's Feast is a wonderful movie, full of restrained emotion, unspoken understandings, wisdom...and, of course, a meal that will leave you with a growling stomach as you exit the theater. If you win a lottery so you could afford what Babette created and have her skill and artistry, here's what she served:
Potage a la Tortue (a rich turtle soup), served with amontillado sherry
Blinis Demidoff au Caviar (small buckwheat pancakes with sour cream and caviar), served with Veuve Clicquot champagne
Cailles en Sarcophage with Sauce Perigourdine (boned quail stuffed with foie gras and truffle in puff pastry with truffle sauce enriched with Madeira), served with Clos de Vougeot, a fine burgundy
Salade
Cheese and fresh fruit
Baba au Rhum with glacee fruit and fresh figs
Coffee and a fine brandy
The DVD is bare bones and looks fine.
Summary of Babette's Feast
Some movies can only be described as delicious. In Babette's Feast, a woman flees the French civil war and lands in a small seacoast village in Denmark, where she comes to work for two spinsters, devout daughters of a puritan minister. After many years, Babette unexpectedly wins a lottery, and decides to create a real French dinner--which leads the sisters to fear for their souls. Joining them for the meal will be a Danish general who, as a young soldier, courted one of the sisters, but she turned him away because of her religion. The village elders all resolve not to enjoy the meal, but can their moral fiber resist the sensual pleasure of Babette's cooking? Babette's Feast deservedly won the 1987 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. This lovely movie is impeccably simple, yet its slender narrative contains a wealth of humor, melancholy, and hope. --Bret FetzerArt House & International VHS Video
VHS Video Movies
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation VHS Video
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics VHS Video
- Comedy VHS Video
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama VHS Video
- Educational
- Fitness
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror VHS Video
- Kids & Family
- Military & War VHS Video
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports VHS Video
- Television VHS Video
- Westerns VHS Video
Movies most talked about in 25 Great Foreign Films- Foreign From An American Perspective
Crouching Tiger, Hidden DragonSony Pictures; Release date: 2001-10-02; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
All About My MotherSony Pictures; Release date: 2001-01-16; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $14.70
Price in other shops:
Run Lola Run (Original German Version With English Subtitles)Published: 1998; DVD
Il PostinoMiramax; Release date: 1998-02-10; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $3.41
Price in other shops:
Burnt by the SunRelease date: 2003-07-15; DVD
Best price: $275.79
Raise the Red LanternOrion Home Video; Release date: 1995-07-11; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $8.95
Price in other shops:
Cinema ParadisoHbo Home Video; Release date: 1994-12-11; Published: 1990; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
Babette's FeastOrion Home Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $16.11
Price in other shops:
Manon of the SpringRelease date: 2001-01-23; DVD
Best price: $6.78
Price in other shops:
Jean De FloretteMGM (Video & DVD); Release date: 2000-06-06; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $0.88
Price in other shops:
Similar VHS Movies
Bagdad CafeCRazy Bones; Release date: 2001-07-24; DVD
Best price: $53.99
Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengardby Isak Dinesen
Vintage; Published: 1993-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
Cyrano de BergeracTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2004-02-10; DVD
Best price: $7.49
Price in other shops:
Il PostinoRelease date: 2000-03-14; DVD
Best price: $5.19
Price in other shops:
My Mother's CastleRelease date: 2002-11-05; DVD
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops:
My Father's GloryRelease date: 2002-11-05; DVD
Best price: $5.57
Price in other shops:
TampopoRelease date: 2005-05-22; DVD
Best price: $17.99
Price in other shops:
Jean De Florette / Manon of the Spring (MGM World Films)TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2007-07-24; Published: 1987; DVD
Best price: $10.62
Price in other shops:
Mostly MarthaRelease date: 2003-02-18; DVD
Best price: $12.26
Price in other shops:
Eat Drink Man WomanTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2002-03-05; DVD
Best price: $2.99
Price in other shops: