Let's Feast!

By Melissa

Through the movie Babette's Feast the audience gets a chance to witness how a repressed society would handle a little bit of pleasure. In this story a woman named Babette seeks refuge with two sisters in the country. The sisters are the daughters of a minister. They were brought up in a conservative home with modest living at the core of their beliefs. Both sisters chose not to let the love of a man into their lives even though suitors expressed their interest in them.

The society in which the sisters live in is truly repressed. They eat dried out fish and beer soup everyday. They wear modest clothing and sing mostly songs of worship for the lord. Their houses are modestly designed and they process nothing of any significant value. Basic necessities for survival are all they own. Meanwhile, Babette comes from the lavished parisian lifestyle and must get used to this repression, which she does for 14 years.

After 14 years of living with the sisters Babette gets a letter stating that she has won the French lottery. She decides to throw the sisters a feast in celebration of their dead father's birthday. She, with the help of her nephew, imports some of the finest ingredients France has to offer. The feast scares the townsfolk, and they try to renounce their sense of taste as they ate the food. They believed that enjoying this food was the work of the devil.

The dinner was a love affair, sinful. The meal brought them together. They came in quarreling and left joyous. Babette spent all of the money she had won on this feast and decided to stay with the sisters in the country. " An artist is never poor." Babettes art was her cooking and how through food she brought people together. She didn't care that the meal cost her all of her money.

This movie was in a strange way inspirational. It was the story of a different type of woman, a woman who was caring and humble. Babette was once the most prestigious chef in Paris and now she chose to stay with the sisters who showed her compassion, and to live moderately. Sometimes within the simple life we find happiness.