Director: Gabriel Axel
Year Released: 1987
Rating: 1.0
Grossly overrated Oscar-winning film about the lives of two old women in a minuscule village who get involved with men (the one a soldier, the other a musician) but never marry them (due to their religiously orthodox father) and stay in the same house they were born in, avoiding all kinds of
'dangerous' exotic activities. In comes Babette, a mysterious French housemaid, who, after winning the lottery, vies to prepare everyone a genuine French meal (most are used to consuming only fish paste and slop). And that's the movie. I'm not kidding. I realize I'm not getting the 'sweet, sentimental and subtle' underpinnings and deep, universal themes regarding love and the need to experience new things and memory and such, but the entire production simply drags on for about an hour, guided mostly by voice-over narrative (the total dialogue runs about four pages long all together) and time/space flip-flopping, leaping from present to past to present and back again and all the while not entirely concerned with turning its two protagonists into well-developed characters (all they do is sit around and nod and act obedient). Babette's presence is spooky and fascinating - she parades around the village in a large billowing cloak, the type you'd see a 'stereotypical' witch wear, and concocts a surprisingly delectable meal which includes frogs, quail and a mammoth turtle. And the turtle, even on its worst day, could beat this empty film to the punch.
