"Babette's Feast" Lacking In All the Worst Ways

 


    Babette's Feast has a reputation that I don't think is warranted. It's in the criterion collection, people love it, the ratings for it are exceptionally high. Even still, after watching it I can't help but come away feeling as if it left so much on the table, that it still accomplished remarkably little even for a film that's less than two hours long. I just don't get it, it's fine, I suppose the cinematography is nice, but personally, I feel like it could have just been a lot better. Perhaps there's something I'm missing, after all I'm a simpleton who loves superheroes, but I just can't see why this movie has such high ratings. Is it because people like seeing French food cooked? That was probably one of the more interesting parts of the film for me, but I'd hardly say it made the film worth watching in any capacity.

    I even let this review stew in the back of my mind to see if my opinion on it would ever change, but it didn't, I still don't really like it. I think by far my biggest issue is the fact that the film doesn't focus on Babette enough. Yes, I know this looks like someone complaining about the fact that the title doesn't have much to do with the film, but I promise you it's not that. I just think Babbette was by far the most interesting character in this movie, and instead they decided to leave all of the action up to the imagination of the viewer, while leaving you with a bland, boring Danish village. Look, I get it, the entire point is to hammer home just how boring the village is, they eat unappetizing food, there is hardly any colour other than dull green and washed out blues, and background music doesn't even begin to enter the film until they begin eating the food. It's hard, and it's dull, but it's also pretty much the entire film. In my opinion, they could have easily made their point clear to the viewers, in a fraction of the time, instead of devoting the entire film so that viewers know for sure that this Danish village sucks.

    What it instead should have focused on is Babbette, who seemed much more interesting than the two sisters who seemingly drag the ghost of their father with them wherever they go. What this film could have been is one that follows Babbette, as she finds happiness and family, climbing up to the top of Paris' finest restaurant, serving only the highest quality of meals. Only to have civil war ravage her family, killing both her son and husband, escaping to a Danish village where she feels like a bird with her wings clip. Eventually, she adjusts, and she learns to love the people she's moved in with, and one day she wins the lottery. So what does she do? She decides to show them love the only way she knows how as an artist, through food. And so it would have been this beautiful story about refugee's and how immigrants share both their love and culture through food. Instead we spend the first thirty minutes watching some old dude reject suitors for his daughters.

    Look, reading the reviews, I just don't see what they love about this film. It's not like I was missing something, like there was this angle I was failing to see things through. People just enjoyed the film and the story, and I thought it was boring. I'm not one to say that there needs be a lot of movement in the plot for me to enjoy a film, but I just don't think any other aspect of the film really stands out to me, leaving me with a film that comes off as fine if you watched it for a class (which I did), but ultimately pretty dry and boring. Perhaps it's just from another time, and that's why I don't connect with it like I should, but honestly I struggle to find many redeeming qualities.

Final Score: 40/100

    I suppose the nicest thing I have to say about the film is that it was inoffensive. It's not like I think it's bad because it did something wrong, rather I just think it lacks many redeeming qualities, if any, and as a result I'm just left hoping that someone enjoyed this film, because I didn't.


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