Category Archives: PERIOD FILM

From the 420 films that we have seen over the last 10 years @ the CINEMATIKI we have chosen “Babette’s Feast” to celebrate our 10th. anniversary…

Among the many films that center on food at the end of the twentieth century, Babette’s Feast (Babettes Gaestebud) stands out for its reach and for the subtlety of its sensuality. For this film depicts far more than food and foodways; it shows more than the sensuality of food in our lives. Paradoxically, this Danish film tells an exemplary tale of French cuisine. Its portrayal of a French cook far from France evokes the French culinary landscape even more than the Danish countryside where it is set.

The fable of French cuisine turns out to be a culinary tale for all times and places, for all those cooks who transform eating into dining, and for all those diners who come away from the table transformed.

The immediacy achieved by the moving narrative raises Babette’s Feast to iconic status well above the short story by Isak Dinesen from which it is drawn.

Pope Francis’ favorite movie is “Babette’s Feast.” He’s mentioned it numerous times throughout the years of his papacy, and even referred to it in the 2016 papal document Amoris Laetitia: “We can think of the lovely scene in the film Babette’s Feast, when the generous cook receives a grateful hug and praise: ‘Ah, how you will delight the angels!’ “

Help us celebrate our 10th anniversary with a sumptuous, sensual pot luck feast!

Tom & JJ