Babette's Feast | 
 enlarge | Director: Gabriel Axel
Actors: Stephane Audran, Birgitte Federspiel, Bodil Kjer, Jarl Kulle, Jean-philippe Lafont
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $5.36
You Save: $9.62 (64%)
New (52) Used (22) Collectible (2) from $5.36
Rating:  140 reviews
Sales Rank: 1017
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Letterboxed, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: Danish (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: G (General Audience)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 103
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.5
MPN: D1001475D
ISBN: 079284839X
UPC: 027616857958
EAN: 9780792848394
ASIN: B000053VBK
Theatrical Release Date: March 4, 1988
Release Date: January 23, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: ******BRAND NEW****** THE SOURCE FOR RARE MEDIA, THOUSANDS OF CUSTOMERS SATISFIED, AND OVER 250 000 ITEMS IN STOCK, BUY FROM A TRUSTED SOURCE, ESTABLISHED SINCE 1998 - INETVIDEO ~~~
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
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 Fetzer
Description
Artistic, sensual and sacred passions unite in Babette's Feast. Written and directed by Gabriel Axel, from a short story by Out of Africa's Isak Dinesen, this Oscar(r)-winning*film offers "an irresistible mixture of dry wit and robust humanity" (Newsweek). Onthe desolate coast of Denmark live Martina and Philippa, the beautiful daughters of a devout clergyman who preaches salvation through self-denial. Both girls sacrifice youthful passion to faith and duty, and even many years after their father's death, they keep his austere teachings alive among thetownspeople. But with the arrival of Babette, a mysterious refugee from France's civil war, life for the sisters and their tiny hamlet begins to change. Soon, Babette has convinced them to try something truly outrageousa gourmet French meal! Her feast, of course, scandalizes the local elders. Just who is this strangely talented Babette, who has terrified this pious town with the prospect of losing their souls for enjoying too much earthly pleasure? *1987: Foreign Language Film
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| Customer Reviews: Read 135 more reviews...
 Philosophical legend July 17, 2008
As the title says, this legned was put on the background of french revolution, but its philosophical significance reaches far beyond, before and after that specific historic period. Issue has been probably pursued by human being since they became civilized gradually: what is the persistant value of life, relatively unchanged by uncertainty of world. The movie offers some clue for people to follow to practically explore in today's real world.
 Babette's Feast July 7, 2008
Very interesting but a little hard to follow. We finished a bood study in church Sunday School Class on Heaven. the book referred to this book.
yeah, very slow start June 20, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
yeah, i'm agreeing with the latest reviews. I've watched one hour of the movie, and see that we're finally going to get to the meat (excuse the pun) of the story. I expect a better second half. The first half is very slow and fairly pointless. I understand they're setting up the story, but it should have been done in a half hour or less. I guess we're all impatient 21rst centuryers. (-:
Gets better, but what an awful, awful beginning. May 30, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987)
Babette's Feast, 1987 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, starts off painfully slowly. While the movie does get quite good after that, I have to wonder whether the Academy simply fast-forwarded through the first half-hour of their screeners when deciding to give the award to this rather than, say, Au Revoir les Enfants. (But then, it was the eighties, when the Academy were collectively demented; anything was possible. I mean, come on, Reds won Best Pitcure.) I suggest you do the same, and stop when you finally meet Babette (Stephane Audran). Everything before that is setup, and it's not especially well-handled setup. In fact, it's not really handled at all. But then expatriate Babette wins the French lottery, and everything starts getting fun.
From there, the movie is a foodie's dream. It's like an episode of Iron Chef where there's only one competitor, a blaze of buying, cooking, serving, eating, all of which takes subtle digs at the conventions of the time (which are obvious during the scenes; you don't need the setup for anything other than knowing who's at the table). Wonderful. In other words, watch the last hour of the film and be entertained. The first half-hour, though, feels more like dragging yourself naked along a glacier. **
Oh what a Feast...struggled with wrapper around it May 22, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
2 beautiful sisters who live in a desolate region of Denmark pass up chances for marriage, stage performance and seeing the world in exchange for caring for their aging and pious Father.
A French war refugee (Babette) flees Paris after her husband and child are murdered and she stays with the sisters and works for them as a cook/maid. Babette wins the lotto (keep in mind this is 19th century setting) and she decides to spend her largess on preparing a feast for the town to celebrate the Father's 100th year. The town believes that she and the dinner are evil temptations and they are wary.
This movie is slow and you need to hang in there up to the dinner prep scenes. The build-up to the dinner scenes seem lightly connected if at all to the main event. That being said, the dinner prep and the dinner were riveting and a must-see movie experience. The setting, including the buildings, the furnishing, the characters, the costumes, the wildlife and the ocean front - all beautiful cinematography.
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