#665: AXEL, Gabriel: Babette's Feast (1987)

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AXEL, Gabriel (Denmark)
Babette's Feast [1987]
Spine #665
Blu-ray


At once a rousing paean to artistic creation, a delicate evocation of divine grace, and the ultimate film about food, the Oscar-winning Babette's Feast is a deeply beloved treasure of cinema. Directed by Gabriel Axel and adpted from a story by Isak Dinesen, it is the lovingly layered tale of a French housekeeper with a mysterious past who brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late nineteenth-century Denmark. Babette's Feast combines earthiness and reverence in an indescribably moving depiction of sensual pleasure that goes to your head like fine champagne.

104 minutes
Color
2.0 Surround
in Danish, French, and Swedish
1:66:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2013
Director/Writers


From a story by Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen).
Screenplay by Gabriel Axel.
Axel was 69 when he directed Babette's Feast.

The Film

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Sixty-eight page booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Mark Le Fanu and Dinesen’s 1950 story.

Commentary

None.

Interviews

With director Axel and actor Audran.

Karen Blixen — Storyteller

A 1995 documentary about the author of the film’s source story, who wrote under the pen name Isak Dinesen.

Visual essay

By filmmaker Michael Almereyda.

Interview

With sociologist Priscilla Parkhurt Ferguson about the significance of cuisine in French culture.

Trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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