The false comedy of Babette's Feast

Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast (1988), based on a story by Isak Dinesen (which I haven't read but will), is worth watching for the feast if nothing else. The eponymous Babette has to flee Paris (circa 1870) to escape some kind of political uprising; a nephew takes her on a dangerous crossing and she finds herself on the remote Jutland coast of Denmark with a letter of into to two sisters in a tiny coastal community in which all of the residents are members of a strict Christian sect (established by the late father of the two sisters). The sisters, charitably I guess, take her in. They cannot afford to pay her a salary, but they provide her with food and shelter and she works as their cook and housekeeper. Oddly, years later she wins a French lottery and decides to replay her benefactors by cooking for them a real French dinner. The fun of the movie lies in watching her so so: Importing all sorts of ingredients - including a cage full of quail and a huge tortoise - as well as china, utensils, and rare wines. The feast is fantastic, but so odd and alien to all of the members of the community that not only do they not appreciate the meal she has prepared but they think it's diabolical and they pledge to one another to dine politely but never to offer praise of thanks. To my mind, there's extreme cruelty on both sides: the residents of the village (all but one are elderly) have no human kindness or warmth (though the wines do make them feel just a little tipsy and joyous) and on the other hand Babette's feast is hardly an appropriate introduction to French food for a group of novices who've been living on dried fish and dark bread. For many, it would be torturous to eat quail and turtle soup, one would think. In the end (hardly a spoiler, but anyway...) Babette reveals she has spent her entire fortune on this "feast," and she will continue to live as an unpaid service in this aging and cold community until her death presumably. Though Axel does get a few laughs, particularly from the reactions of the villagers as they nibble at the feast, this is a cold and heartless movie, a story of missed connections, sorrowful lives, foolishly dramatic gestures of self-effacement, false modesty, and people full of hated and distrust - a true Scandinavian comedy.

(See related post in Elliotsreading blog.)