Babette's Feast (1987) on Netflix
Babette Hersant, a French refugee, asks two pious sisters in a remote Jutland village to let her cook for them without pay. Her lottery win pays for a French dinner.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.7/1024,237 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes97%
Trailer
Plot summary
Martine and Filippa live in a village on Jutland's remote western coast, where their late father founded a Pietistic conventicle. The aging sisters lead a dwindling congregation of elderly villagers. In their youth Martine was courted by the Swedish cavalry officer Lorens Löwenhielm and Filippa by the Paris Opera baritone Achille Papin, and their father turned both men away. Babette Hersant appears at their door with a letter from Papin: she is a refugee from the bloodshed in Paris, and he recommends her as a housekeeper. The sisters have no money to pay a servant, so Babette works for nothing. A lottery ticket she holds each year wins her ten thousand francs, and she asks to cook a French dinner for the sisters and their congregation on the hundredth birthday of their father.
Cast
- Thomas Antonias Swedish Lieutenant
- Gudmar Wivessonas Lorens Löwenhielm som ung
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Babette's Feast (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Stéphane Audran was handed the script for Babette's Feast while Catherine Deneuve was still contemplating the title role; Audran called two hours later to say she wanted it, and was officially cast the next day when Deneuve declined.
- Karen Blixen's story sets the tale in a Norwegian village, but Axel found Norway too idyllic, like a 'beautiful tourist brochure'; he moved the film to the windswept western coast of Jutland and had set designer Sven Wichmann build a small grey village there.
- Babette's Feast became the first Danish film to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and the first Danish cinema film of a story by Karen Blixen.
- Nordisk Film wanted an all-Danish cast for Babette's Feast to cut costs, but Axel insisted on Danish, Swedish and French actors for authenticity, backed by Danish Film Institute consultant Claes Kastholm Hansen.
- Production consultants told Axel that using a narrator was too old-fashioned, but he was adamant, casting Danish actress Ghita Nørby as the narrator of Babette's Feast.
