Babette’s Feast (1987) - trailer

Babette’s Feast (1987) - trailer. Subscribe: A mouthwatering Christmas treat, Babette’s Feast is re-released on 14 December in a beautiful new digital transfer. Book tickets: Adapted with great sensitivity and invention from Isak Dinesen’s short story (itself inspired by The Tempest), this truly lovely tale of everyday passion, magic and miracles is a delicacy to savour. Relocating the story from a bourgeois Norwegian port to a remote, windswept Jutland hamlet so steeped in Lutheran spirituality it feels like something out of a Dreyer film, Axel traces the strange chain of events that led to the two elderly daughters of a famously pious pastor taking on, as their cook, a Parisienne who was until the advent of the Commune one of the city’s most celebrated chefs. At once poignant and funny, gently ironic and quietly compassionate, the story -- beautifully performed by all concerned (some faces are familiar from Dreyer and Bergman), but most especially by Audran, clearly relishing her role as a gastronomic wizard -- casts its spell carefully yet confidently, culminating in the titular banquet: improbable, mouthwatering, supremely regenerative. Watch more on the BFI Player: Follow us on Twitter: Like us on Facebook: Follow us on Google : britishfilminstitute/