Looking for a meaningful family movie to enjoy during the Christmas season? Babette’s Feast is a classic film depicting the surprising choices of a French refugee maid who shows a small village the true meaning of celebration and community.
The film addresses the theme of true leisure and festival and invites the viewers to question the purpose behind celebration and extravagance, rightly ordered. At a time of year crammed with busyness and activity, observe how Babette challenges the norms of the village culture by inviting them into a mindset of abundance. How does our faith call us to enter into a true festival? Why do we celebrate? How can our humanity be restored by a feast?
The Church gives us a beautiful rhythm of feasting and fasting through the liturgical calendar and its various seasons. Seasons with a penitential spirit, like Advent and Lent, prepare us to receive the abundance of their corresponding feast days. Just as fasting is the appropriate disposition during penitential times, feasting and celebration is the proper response to a feast day! This balance is deeply human, and no spiritual life is complete without harmony betwen the two.
Feasting and fasting depend upon each other to reach their full meaning. Even seasons with a penitential spirit, like Advent and Lent, are punctuated with a Sunday that focuses more on hope and joy in anticipation of the coming feast: during Lent we have Laetare Sunday and during Advent, Gaudete Sunday. These third Sundays, when the priest wears rose-colored vestments, remind us that the end of the season is coming soon and to keep heart!
This healthy and rich understanding of feasting balanced with fasting is rooted in our faith’s fundamental understanding that all that God created is good, and indeed, very good. God created man to enjoy and delight in creation and to be uniquely attuned to the intricate beauties of reality. All of creation points back to the Divine Creator who upholds everything in existence at every moment (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.104.1).
Too often, the faithful can fall into the trap of puritanism where piety is compounded with cold, emotionless stoicism. We are tempted to shut ourselves off from enjoyment under the guise of spiritual growth when in reality we are called to a mature understanding of temperance, balance, and joy. Rightly enjoying the pleasures of the world could not be more different than being dominated by them in a hedonistic search for pleasure alone. Conversely, rejecting the pleasures of the world is not the same as fasting. We abstain from good things for a short time while still upholding that they are good. Fasting helps us purify our hearts in order to be ready to rejoice in the celebration of the liturgical feast.
Although celebrations do not always include a large meal, it is common and even highly fitting that it does. We see this even within the liturgy of the Church when the Eucharist is the “Source and summit of the Christian life” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1324). The liturgy is full of imagery of a feast. In the Eucharistic prayer, the priest prays “Blessed are those who are called to the wedding feast of the Lamb”. And, after all, when we are called to the Altar it is to physically receive and consume the bread that is Jesus. If this most important Sacrament is, at its core, a wedding feast, then there must be something deeply human and deeply divine at the core of feasting. On the human level, sharing a meal is a way to foster deeper community as we consume the same bodily nourishment alongside one another. In addition, there is a spiritual closeness that is fostered when we all share in the same hospitality and fellowship.
The film Babette’s Feast explores these questions by comparing the understanding of art, beauty, and celebration held by two Roman Catholic characters from France with the stricter, Lutheran habits of the locals in the small Danish village of Jutland. The villagers grapple with how to understand desire and even celebration and are brought to a deeper understanding of their relationship with God through the generosity and artistry of an unlikely source.
The film explores the uniquely human connection between body and soul: Man is not merely spiritual nor is he merely physical. Man occupies a unique position in all creation by being a union of body and soul. This significant detail is brought under close analysis when man partakes in a celebratory meal, or feast. Is the food merely bodily nourishment? Or can it be something more?
The character of Babette makes a controversial decision when she comes into a surprising amount of wealth. The storyline of the film invites the viewer to ponder the true cost of celebration, both personally and monetarily. This theme echoes the gospel story of the Anointing at Bethany (Matthew 26:6-13) when the woman pours the costly jar of perfume on the feet of Jesus. The apostles balk at the seeming waste of the precious oil and remark that it could have been sold and the money used to feed the hungry. Jesus’ response is “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me” (Matthew 26:10, RSV). For some, including the apostles, this response is surprising and challenging but it invites us to remember the supernatural order of reality, not just the material. The characters in the film are called in different ways to pour themselves out – and they respond in a variety of ways, revealing their underlying values and their understanding of humanity.
In the holiday season, when so many celebrations are vying for our attention, Babette’s Feast invites us to reflect on our understanding of festival and how we, as Christians, are called to give of ourselves. Here are a few discussion questions to help you explore the movie with friends and family:
- Was the feast a “waste”? Why or why not?
- Have you ever eaten something that tasted so good you would describe it as a “bite of heaven”? Did that help you grow closer to God or was it a distraction?
- Do people feast like that nowadays? If so, when? If not, what aspect are they missing?
- What gifts or talents do you have that could help others truly enter into seasons of feasting?
- Which character do you most resonate with and why?
