Hacker Cinema
Babette's Feast
Babettes gæstebud
1987 · Film · 104 min
Directed by Gabriel Axel
A French housekeeper with a mysterious past brings quiet revolution in the form of one exquisite meal to a circle of starkly pious villagers in late 19th century Denmark.
4 positivefrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
As an avid reader and outdoors enthusiast, I feel there’s a lot of value on “wasting” time with a movie or limited series.
Absolutely, there are so many better things to do and experience than watching TV, but no one should be stressing out about maximizing their time doing them.
In fact, going against that mindset once in a while, and allowing yourself to not do the thing you think you should be doing, is an experience by itself.
Also, it doesn’t need to be a complete waste of time. If you like history or art, there’s a lot of content both as fiction and non fiction that you would find intellectually stimulating (I highly recommend Criterion for this)
One cold November night my wife picked a movie called Babette's Feast. I absolutely loved the photography. I did some research and found it was inspired by Danish painter Hammershoi, which I never heard of. For Christmas, my wife gave me a beautifully printed, limited edition of his work by the Jacquemart museum in Paris.
Later this year we plan to make a stop in Copenhagen on our way to Sweden to visit friends, so we can see Hammershoi work at the museums.
I meant Ordet and Babette's Feast. The Passion of Joan of Arc is a french movie, even if it is a Dreyer film.
Babette's Feast is also Danish, one of the most well-known and highly regarded Danish films of all time. The other 2 are Dreyer films—I've only seen Ordet so far, and I thought it was just amazing. Johannes is an unforgettable character.
It's a pretty great list, far as I can tell. Dersu Uzala (1975, not 1978) must be in my all-time top 5.[0] I loved Bicycle Thieves—The Bicycle Thief is a bad translation. Yes, it's important to the story!—but much preferred Umberto D. Liked On the Waterfront but vastly preferred A Face in the Crowd.
[0] It's my pet theory that Yoda in Star Wars is based on Dersu. There are many similarities. Seems very obvious to me but I've never heard or read anyone else mention the connection. The plot of the original Star Wars was after all based on that of another Kurosawa movie, Hidden Fortress. See e.g. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160104-the-film-star-wars-stole-from
Apart from those already mentioned by others, some challenging classics:
Zorba the Greek Ikiru (Living), by Akira Kurosawa Babette's Feast La Strada La double vie de Véronique Lawrence of Arabia It's a Wonderful Life Jakob the Liar Citizen Kane Deliverance Dogville
Worth noting that none of these are "feel-good" american movies. They're "kick you in the balls and get you busy living" movies. I much prefer those to simple feel-good movies. If you want feel-good, just go watch some reruns of Friends (I'm not saying that like it's a bad thing; I do it quite often; but those are not the best inspirational movies by a long shot).