If you don´t like this movie the first time you watch it, give it another try: it gets better.

Denmark, 1870s. Two deeply religious elderly sisters living in an isolated village take in a French refugee from the Franco-Prussian war, Babette. She becomes their housekeeper and is happy to work for no pay. 14 years later, Babette wins a large amount of money in a lottery. The event coincides with the 100th anniversary of the birth of the sisters' father, a devout Christian minister who had a great following in the village. Babette decides to throw a great dinner for the the remaining followers to honour the occasion. One thing: the dinner will be French and once the ingredients start to arrive, the unsophisticated villagers suspect that something unholy is about to take place.Based on a short story by Karen Blixen (of Out Of Africa fame), this is an engaging, though not overly profound, movie. Starts slowly, showing the sisters' back story and building to the present day. The back story seems unnecessary initially, especially as it seems to wander and add nothing to the overall plot. However, the past, especially the characters therein, will have an important impact on the present.The movie hits its stride in the second half, especially once Babette wins the lottery. A few themes start to emerge and the story becomes more engaging. An important shift takes place, in that the focus moves from the sisters to Babette, and this makes things much more interesting.Unfortunately, the themes that emerge don't lead to anything too profound. I had visions of a powerful examination of how people's prejudices prevent them from enjoying life's simple pleasures, or how great art/food is lost on simple folk, but nothing really came of those.Ultimately, an interesting story, lacking a powerful conclusion. Will make you very hungry though - the food looks fantastic!Won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1988.

A tribute to the late Danish director Gabriel Axel, BABETTE'S FEAST is the paramount legacy left by him to us, an Academy BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE PICTURE winner, a chant implies us what gustation could evoke a religious epiphany. It is a ritually ceremonious fare renders us warmth and serenity without the customary sanctimony or doctrinaire preaching, a crowd-pleaser dauntingly satiates the audience's aesthetics irrespective of their religious disparities. A dour and self-sacrificing manner of living in an isolated village, Flippa (Kjer) and Martine (Federspiel) are two spinster sisters adhere to the holy cause of their late father (Kern), sermonize local believers. Narrated by a poised and tranquilizing voice-over, through Flippa and Martine's episodic and never-fully-blossomed romance with two gentlemen in their youth, not only we witness their tested devotedness to the conviction, but also it gently sets the context for the arrival of Babette (Audran), a French fugitive seeks for refugee during the wartime, who voluntarily serves the sisters as a housemaid, until she wins a lottery and decides to prepare a genuine French feast for the sisters and their followers, who are dumbfounded at the sheer exotic and exquisite banquet, and the comical and scintillating vibes of their apprehension towards the unknown treat and protean reactions after savoring each course are depicted in a self-effacing but divinely innocuous mode. We might not all enthusiasts of French cuisine, however, the contradiction can never be more wisely enjoyable. The performances are rigidly rehearsed, a mite of histrionics but overall, there are nothing but amiable characters, Audran imbues a underplayed enactment of a woman afflicted by the most atrocious trauma, but hides them all under her worldly facade, even in a foreign country, she spunkily embraces her life without compromise. Kjer and Federspiel pair up harmoniously in their saint-like personae, embody all the virtues with compelling grace and benevolence. Jarl Kulle uniformly eloquent as Gen. Lorens Löwenhielm, a true gourmet guides the devotees into an emulating farce of a viscerally gustatory escapade, and the real-life baritone Jean-Philippe Lafont imprints a gleeful tonality as a maestro stumbles on a hidden gem which contritely he can never possess. It is simply a winsome bucolic prose with minimal adornment, encompassed with pictorial shots of rural scenery, still-life scrutiny and rigorous portrayal, enchants us with empyrean hymns, but emotionally BABETTE'S FEAST is immensely opulent, an ethereal fable oozes humanity and compassion can feasibly strike a chord in any heart with perspicacious pulsation, RIP Gabriel Axel, may thou will be feted with a feast in heaven too.

As someone who has read the short story by Isak Dineson along with the movie, I agree with many others that this movie is not simply a "foodie flick," but offers a psychological and religious depth perspective on the life of a woman who's lost everything near and dear to her and how she manages to rise above her grievous losses. The book portrays Babette as a dark, formidable presence in the lives of Martina and Philippa. Axel downplays this aspect, but does maintain it in subtle ways. Axel does go beyond Dineson's portrayal by suggesting Babette is a kind of Christ figure. For more on these themes, a simple online search for critical articles about the movie yields many fine writings (see esp. the Journal of Religion and Film and the Carl Jung page).