In 1965, Bob Dylan sang, “She’s got everything she needs; she’s an artist; she don’t look back.” About twenty years later, Gabriel Axel brilliantly dramatized this idea in Babette’s Feast (1987).

A film as perfect as a film can be, Babette’s Feast treats the viewer to the pleasures of autotelic endeavors: things we do for their own sake because we enjoy them. Like last week’s film, Big Night, this one welcomes us to a big table in which a chef feeds others as a work of art. Mike and Dan also talk about the characters’ assumption that austerity is the key to Heaven and how the film treats this idea without mocking the characters or setting them up for a nasty surprise, as in The Witch. So pour another glass of Amontillado, sit back, and press play!

The film is a faithful adaptation of Isak Dinesen’s 1955 story, found in the collection Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard.

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