Happy Birthday, Gabriel Axel! Born today in 1918 as Axel Gabriel Erik Mørch, this Danish actor, writer, producer and film director is best known for his 1987 Danish drama/romance film 'Babettes Gæstebud' ('Babette's Feast').
The film was the pinnacle of Axel's long career and marked the beginning of a resurgence of Danish cinema.
'Babette's Feast' was adapted from a story by Danish author Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke (known under her pen names Isak Dinesen, used in English-speaking countries).
She is best known for writing her 1937 biographical memoir Out of Africa, an account of her life while living in Kenya.
Beautiful but pious sisters Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodil Kjer) grow to spinsterhood under the wrathful eye of their strict pastor father on the forbidding and desolate coast of Jutland.
The story then flashes back forty-nine years, showing the sisters in their youth n late nineteenth-century Denmark.
Philippa's former suitor sends Parisian refugee and housekeeper Babette Hersant (Stéphane Audran) to serve as the family cook.
However, her lavish celebratory banquet tempts the family's dwindling congregation, who abjure such fleshly pleasures as fine foods and wines.
It is through Babette, the woman with a mysterious past, who ultimately brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers.
At once a rousing paean to artistic creation, a delicate evocation of divine grace, and the ultimate film about food, 'Babette’s Feast' is a deeply beloved treasure of cinema.
The film combines earthiness and reverence in an indescribably moving depiction of sensual pleasure that goes to your head like fine champagne.
'Babette's Feast' premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 40th Cannes Film Festival in May of that same year.
The following year, 'Babette's Feast' won an Oscar for Best International Feature Film. The occurred at the 60th Academy Awards in April 1988. It was also the first Danish film to win this award.
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