With February being the Academy Awards season, those little gold Oscars are still on my mind. And just by chance one of my favorite award winners from yesteryear arrived in MSEL this past month; Babette’s Feast (DVD 3282) won the 1988 Oscar for Best Foreign Film.
Movie summary housed through the New York Times:
The Danish/French Babette’s Feast is based on a story by Isak Dinesen, also the source of the very different Out of Africa (1985). Stephane Audran plays Babette, a 19th century Parisian political refugee who seeks shelter in a rough Danish coastal town. Philippa (Bodil Kjer) and Martina (Birgitte Federspiel), the elderly daughters of the town’s long-dead minister, take Babette in. As revealed in flashback, Philippa and Martina were once beautiful young women (played by Hanne Stensgaard and Vibeke Hastrup), who’d forsaken their chances at romance and fame, taking hollow refuge in religion. Babette holds a secret that may very well allow the older ladies to have a second chance at life. This is one of the great movies about food, but there are way too many surprises in Babette’s Feast to allow us to reveal anything else at this point (except that Ingmar Bergman “regulars” Bibi Andersson and Jarl Kulle have significant cameo roles). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Maybe it’s because I, like Babette, feel that cooking for others is the perfect way to express joy, charity, gratitude, and love, or perhaps it’s simply because the film is stunning in the way it highlights the material austerity of a community by zooming in on the sumptuousness of a filled plate. Either way, Babette’s Feast is a beautiful movie and one to linger over like you would a meal with friends.
See the list of new DVD acquisitions after the jump!
Call # , Title
DVD 3276, Edward Burtynsky, Manufactured Landscapes
DVD 3277, 51 Birch Street
DVD 3278, The Naked Kiss
DVD 3279, Jigoku (Hell)
DVD 3280, Wages of Fear
DVD 3281, Walkabout
DVD 3282, Babettes Gæstebud (Babette’s Feast)
DVD 3283, Europa Europa
DVD 3284, Reds
DVD 3285, All I Wanna Do
DVD 3286, Fat Man and Little Boy
DVD 3287, North and South
DVD 3288, Philadelphia
DVD 3289, Kolja (Kolya)
DVD 3290, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
DVD 3291, Kurutta Kajitsu (Crazed Fruit)
DVD 3292, Sedotta e Abbandonata (Seduced and Abandoned)
DVD 3293, Kárhozat (Damnation)
DVD 3294, Cloud Path: Journey of a Wandering Monk
DVD 3295, The Magic Flute
DVD 3296, 4 by Agnès Varda
DVD 3297, Obchod na Korze (Shop on Main Street)
DVD 3298, Pixar Short Films Collection
DVD 3300, East Side Story
DVD 3301, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
DVD 3302, The Films of Kenneth Anger
DVD 3303, Sisters
DVD 3304, Funny Face
DVD 3305, Zwartboek (Black Book)
DVD 3306, Gus Van Sant’s Mala Noche (Bad Night)
DVD 3307, Primo Levi’s Journey
DVD 3308, Red Road
DVD 3309, Longford
DVD 3310, The Conscientious Objector
DVD 3311, Ostre sledované vlaky (Closely Watched Trains)
DVD 3312, Rocket Science
DVD 3313, Die 3 Groschenoper (The 3 Penny Opera)
DVD 3314, Knocked Up