Babette's Feast

The whole dinner is grace disguised as a menu. Babette, a refugee taken in by two pious sisters in a bleak Jutland village, wins 10,000 francs in a French lottery and spends every centime of it on one meal for people who have vowed not to enjoy it. She asks for nothing back. The film, adapted from Isak Dinesen's story, is about art and generosity as their own reward.

The wines are named on screen, course by course. Amontillado with the turtle soup, Veuve Clicquot 1860 with the blinis, Clos de Vougeot 1845 with the quail, then coffee with a fine marc. General Löwenhielm keeps identifying them aloud — the film's way of revealing Babette's pedigree without ever stating it.

Babette was head chef at the Café Anglais. The real Café Anglais was one of the most celebrated restaurants of 19th-century Paris. The cailles en sarcophage is presented as its signature — the dish that makes the worldly General realize a master is at work.

The food on screen was really cooked. The production brought in a professional chef to prepare the actual courses for the shoot, so what the actors taste is the real thing — part of why the meal reads as genuinely transporting rather than staged.

One line is the whole film. Babette: "Throughout the world sounds one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me the chance to do my very best."