The storytelling during the "how" parts gets mired in prolonged flashbacks, and turns for help to an intrusive and overly necessary narrator. It affords you, through all of that, plenty of time to wish anew that there were an accepted format for cinematic works shorter than feature-length. But the feast itself and the buildup to it are ample rewards for toughing it out.

A charming tale of humanity's need to embrace both sensual and spiritual pleasures.

Probably the best of the food films. (No, that's not a joke. This actually is really good)

How I could have missed this classic for so long time is beyond belief. But the Danish Oscar winner is every bit as compelling and beautifully made as one could have hoped for. Not as touching as the following Oscar winner, Peller erobreren, though.

The film's arc leads the viewer toward a fuller embrace of human life, one that includes both spiritual and material aspects. Set in the context of a Christian community, Babette's final meal serves as something like a Eucharistic rite, bringing the people together into a unified community and leading them to better embody their spiritual ideals. Overall, the narrative is a bit too pat and the visuals offer nothing remarkable, but the underlying idea motivating the film is still compelling.

Babettes gæstebud

Makeup is fantastic at aging the characters, but that's about all the praise I can give this. It's not often that a film can be both a sprawling mess as well as utterly simplistic and mundane, but this film manages it by taking paper thin characters, doing nothing with them, and cutting up the sequencing of events. It drags everywhere and it doesn't even seem to have a purpose.

What is the relationship between spirituality and fleshly pleasure?

19th Century Joy of Cooking. Babette is a French cook that flees from her home to Danish village. Fun, let alone the joy of food, is not part of village until Babette starts cooking.

Good lord is this a slow movie. Perhaps it was trying to truly convey the slow life in a slow town in a slow society, but why torture your viewers? Also, it is all too easy to question the climax and why the characters do what they do--but the picture frustratingly asks none of the questions the viewer is dying to have it ask. This results in an ultimately unsatisfying production that is hard to recommend.

I didn't think I'd enjoy this as much as I did. The first half is rather stilted and possibly a bit lost in translation. But seeing the people find joy through good food and good booze was heartwarming.

A good meal can be a work of art. A true feast for the eyes.

A celebration of art and the artist, but also an autumnal meditation on the nature of life itself, how--although we seldom get what we desire--we often receive compensation for our losses in strange, marvelous ways.

The opulent, sensual dinner scene at the end clashes with the grim danish austerity that permeates the rest of the film - I find this whole atmospheric stuff very well rendered. I agree that some of the dishes look "truly vile" as I've read in another comment here, some of them hurting my animal-friendly sensibilities (turtle soup, for one), but it's part of the movie experience that I try not to look at it that way (hell, this is no 'Cannibal Holocaust' after all...)

Reassuring, satiating piety.

That a film of such beauty, wit and originality only ends in pious self-deceit creates a palpable sadness.

nice

Not awful, but predictable and unsatisfying. Chocolat might be something of a rip-off of this film, but I find it much more charming and likable. The dominant feeling I had during Babette's Feast was that it lacked authenticity. Everything felt staged and predestined, and the period recreation didn't ring true either. The photography was pretty, but only in a postcard sort of way. Also, some of the dishes Babette prepares look truly vile.