Hello fellow humans. Beautiful misfits and weirdos. This is Ágoston Hajnal speaking from the wilderness of London in the United Kingdom. I am a film enthusiast with many different passions and curiosities, a Master's degree in Film Studies and another one in journalism. I call this podcast my film odyssey.
If you are listening to this right now I'm glad we have bumped into each other in this over-saturated landscape of sound. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy.
Our third episode is about Babette's Feast the Danish costume/culinary drama directed by Gabriel Axel and starring Fanny Audrant. The soundscapes and sound effects have been sourced from www.zapsplat.com. Without further ado here it goes...
Babette’s Feast - adapted and directed by Gabriel Axel from Karen Blixen’s short story - is a gorgeous Danish period piece set in a small fishing village with strong religious ties. After the killing of her husband and child, master chef Babette flees France at the time of the 1871 Civil War and the Paris Commune. She is taken in to work for room and board as a maid by two sisters Martine and Filippa, who became the spiritual leaders of the community after the death of their pastor father.
The film does not question the order of this small pious world, but shows it in all its colors, occasionally droll, petty, woeful, and other times tender and tranquil. The cast is full of veteran actors of Danish cinema, chiefs among them Bodil Kjer and Birgitte Federspiel as the sisters and Jarl Kulle as General Löwenhielm. It is no coincidence that many of them have acted in the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer. The depiction of the characters hovers at the outer edges of psychological realism and flirts with the transcendental style, showing cipher-like people who could be anyone and everyone, defined by their striking features, religious practices, and small, repetitious tasks. This is a great ensemble with the smallest gestures of yearning, shame, and disapproval telling us all we need to know.
Time is fleeting under the servitude of endless routine. 14 years pass by without much if any consequence, yet in the end, it is still time that gives these lives meaning and perspective. The story is told by an omnipotent female narrator overseeing a large cast of characters, mimicking Blixen’s point of view. We go freely from one fate to the other, rarely knowing what or who will matter to our tale. We are being told secrets from the depths of souls yet kept at arm’s length from the people. Despite the limited chances for the audience to find a vessel, Stephane Audran's performance is still a guiding light. Her presence simultaneously exudes warmth, grit, sorrow, and sensuality. Her Babette is an acting masterclass in embodiment. She remains an enigma. We never find out much more about her than who she once was and what has happened to her, but Audran makes us feel the sum of her life experiences with just a flicker of her eyes and a few determined steps. Babette is an artist who creates even when she's doing her chores, finding satisfaction in executing them as they were preordained to achieve balance, order, and plenitude.
In Babette’s feast, indulging in the physical through the culinary leads to an affirmation of being alive, and with it - paradoxically - to the transcendental. Compared to Marco Ferreri's late modernist La Grande Bouffe, the relationship to food is not nihilistic. The hedonism, existential despair, value crisis, and lost meaning of modernism have changed to the self-aware and ironic post-modernism of surfaces.
Axel is nostalgic for a deeper sense of metaphysics. This is a midcult film, appropriating the style and minimal plot of modernist film, but giving a narrative and content much easier to digest. From repression at the opposite end of the spectrum, a quiet hopefulness and measured enjoyment emerges that eschews ambivalence for the most part. Feelings still run as deep as ever. Life may be small and uneventful, but never insignificant to those who live it. There is also longing for things and connections never experienced, but there are no regrets, as it is a gift just to have been alive - A notion that could be seen as naive. As pointed out by food historian Annie Gray, Babette herself is a fantasy creation as chefs at such a level were all males at the time of the story and her French dinner is largely an exotic idea of one. What we ultimately see is a fairy tale, a form of cinematic comfort food for an audience of intellectuals who want to experience quiet solitude and spirituality in a sleepy seaside hamlet. Watching other people cook, serve, and eat has rarely been this enjoyable.
While the film is too painterly and visually sumptuous to be an example of the austere transcendental style, similarly to the films of Dreyer and Bresson, the camera rarely moves, and when it does it is in a straight-forward and pointed fashion. Contrary to the transcendental style, all relevant information is inside the often tableau-like frame, rather than given to us via off-screen sound. Axel shows us surfaces, daring us to see the mystery and the wonder in things apparently mundane. The deeply textured art direction, costume design, and 35mm spherical lens cinematography are rich in period detail, yet serve symbolism, rather than realism. The milieu is alternately bucolic and achingly poetic.
In the scene of Martine’s nightmare, Babette appears as a temptress poisoning the congregation with wine doing the devil's deed and assisting the grim reaper. Apart from flashbacks, this is one of few key scenes that use dissolves. The generally lyrical score of Per Norgaard turns cosmic and eerie, and the surreal images express the fear of the unknown and perhaps hidden layers of xenophobic prejudice and religious ignorance.
There is no explicit critique of the devout way of life, but Blixen and Axel undeniably show how it can stand in the way of human connection and happiness. The two sisters both had opportunities to marry, have a family of their own, or see the world, but their strict pastor father keeps them by his side even from the grave. Love cannot blossom and the song of the nightingale cannot echo beyond the walls of the church.
If we think of our socially constructed prisons of class, hierarchy, and belief, there is a lot that can never be. Are the explanations of "why" simple rationalizations and excuses for not having enough courage, or is there such a thing as it was simply not meant to be? Is a certain kind of bravery another person's cowardice and vice-versa? Is it a self-deluding folly to wait for what is good and be grateful for the mercy that will come either way or does it speak of a deeper connection with existence to just accept and let go?
Not for the artist. Since the shamans of ancient societies, the endless forming and re-working of matter and ideas to be consumed by our senses has provided nourishment for the tribe and has given our existence meaning. If we do not try to give our very best, have we even lived at all?
Hello, fellow humanoids! True originals. If you are still listening or just joining us now I am Ágoston Hajnal and this is my Film Odyssey. Please check out my website for more content. It is www.agostonsfilmodyssey.com. That is A.G.O.S.T.O.N. You can also follow me on Instagram, X, Facebook, and Tumblr, links are in the description. Thank you for coming with me on this journey and I hope to see you next time.