Babette's Feast

Babette's Feast was released in 1987 and directed by Gabriel Axel. Rather than simply retelling the plot, the film is worth revisiting for the characters, conflicts and ideas that give its story its identity.

Family and Humanity emerge through what the characters face and the choices they make, giving the story more to explore beyond its immediate plot.

Babette Hersant, Filippa and Martine do not begin the film seeing one another clearly, and watching those first impressions break down is a big part of why Babette's Feast still works.

Elsewhere, the elderly and pious Protestant sisters Martine and Filippa live in a small village on the remote western coast of Jutland in 19th-century Denmark.

Their late father was a pastor who founded his own Pietistic conventicle. That detail matters because it shapes the way the characters initially see one another.

Lacking new converts, the aging sisters preside over a dwindling, elderly congregation. From there, the film can concentrate less on explaining the setup and more on what happens between the people inside it.

Forty-nine years before, the sisters had many suitors, but their father rejected them, to retain the women’s assistance with his pastoral mission.

Martine was courted by a young Swedish cavalry officer, Lorens Löwenhielm, who was visiting Jutland.

Bodil Kjer plays Filippa. The elderly and pious Protestant sisters Martine and Filippa live in a small village on the remote western coast of Jutland in 19th-century Denmark.

That family connection gives Filippa a clearer emotional stake in what happens.

Filippa was courted by the famous baritone Achille Papin, on hiatus from the Paris Opera.

Martine tearfully says, "Now you will be poor the rest of your life", to which Babette replies, "An artist is never poor." Filippa then says: "But this is not the end, Babette.

Babette's Feast has more on its mind than the basic setup suggests. family sits close to the centre of the film, but it is explored through the characters rather than treated like a lesson.

humanity matters just as much. The film keeps challenging the assumptions its characters make about one another, which is where much of its emotional weight comes from.

Babette's Feast could hardly be separated from the decade that produced it. Released in 1987, it carries the attitudes, style and filmmaking rhythms of the 1980s without needing to announce them.

It also sits comfortably within the era's romance, drama and musical filmmaking, even if the movie itself is more interesting than any single genre label suggests.

That is part of why it still appears in conversations about 1980s movies and 1980s romance movies. The film has become tied not only to its own story but to the wider memory of what 1980s movies felt like.

Watching Babette's Feast now means seeing both what has lasted and what unmistakably belongs to 1987.

What still works best is the human material. Ideas around family and humanity have not stopped being relevant simply because the clothes, language and cultural references belong to another era.

Some moments inevitably land differently for a modern audience. Revisiting an older film properly means enjoying what still works without pretending every choice has aged equally well.

A large part of that staying power comes from the characters. Babette Hersant, Filippa and Martine are still useful shorthand for the personalities and pressures the film explores.

Babette's Feast has lasted because people continue to recognise something in it. Nostalgia helps, but nostalgia alone does not keep a movie in the conversation for decades.