Review of Babette`s Feast

Introduction

Babette`s Feast (Or Babettes Gaestebud to give it it`s original Danish title) is a quirky Danish film from the late eighties that one would probably label as "arthouse" in the UK.

The film is based on a short story by Isak Dinesen and is about a French lady - Babette - who goes to work for two elderly Danish sisters in their small village as a cook and housekeeper.

The film, set in a small, remote Danish fishing village sometime in the 19th century, flicks forward and backwards in time to show how the two religious sisters came to be where they are, who sent the housekeeper etc. The film, naturally, culminates the aforementioned feast.......

Arguably one of the best European films of the eighties, this film combines great direction, wonderful cinematography and first class acting with a gently storyline that is still regarded as a great film today.

Video

The film is unfortunately presented in letterboxed 4:3 (the actual viewable picture is around 14:9), and when zoomed in on my widerscreen TV, it was somewhat grainy. Having said that, the picture was nice and stable with only a little noise.

There was some loss of detail and definietion in the blacks and some nice rich colours but the picture overall is slightly dull. This reflects the setting though and adds somewhat to the character of the movie!

The subtitles, when viewed slip below the 14:9 resolution picture, thus complicating zooming in when viewed on widescreen televisions (or projectors).

Audio

On inserting the disc you are ofered a choice of English, French or Italian.

The film itself was originally in French and Danish and this is by far the best soundtrack on the disc. The English track is a little dull and lifeless although the narrator comes across quite well. The dubbing is ok, it`s fairly accurate but suffers the usual fate of dubbed tracks in sounding slightly "unreal".

The French track is excellent, with good stereo separation and great depth to the excelent musical soundtrack that accompanies the film.

Features

The film has little in the way of features - just the original trailer and some subtitles in English, French and Italian.

Conclusion

Babette`s Feast won and Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and deservedly so. This is a nice, humourous, gentle film which I would recommend to anyone.

The dvd has some faults (no anamorphic widescreen etc) but this shouldn`t stop you watching this wonderful litle film.