Querube Barber - Babette's Feast

Can people really live away from everything secular and deny themselves any kind of desire in order to be close to God?

The film Babette's Feast is about some people who isolated themselves to live pure lives in a small village without the influence or corruption of the outside world.

This film was very interesting and different from the others we have seen so far. In the film, a minister and his two daughters, Martina and Philippa, lived pious lives. The two daughters were very dedicated to the father. They follow his belief to the point that they rejected Papin and Lieutenant Lorens, the two men that could have loved them. Even after their father died, they continued to be faithful to his belief.

The sisters opened their humble house to Babette, a French woman who had lost everything in France. By doing this, the sisters obeyed Hebrews 13:2, "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it." The sisters did get a blessing and a big help from Babette. They became very dependent upon Babette even though she had been dependent upon them at first.

When Babette won the grand prize with her lottery ticket, sacrificially she prepared a fest for 12 people. The sisters knew this would be a worldly dinner, which would include wine. Nevertheless, they allowed Babette to prepare it.

The dinner turned out to be a kind of transcendent feast where relationships were mended and reconciliation took place between people. There is a parallelism between this dinner and Christ’s Last Supper with His disciples. Babette prepared the dinner for 12 people; Jesus had His last meal with His 12 disciples.

That small village where the minister, his daughters and the small congregation lived was indeed separated from all kind of outside corruption. It was a place of refuge for some like Babette, for others a place to be transformed like the Lieutenant who became a General, and still for others to realize the emptiness of their lives like Papin.