Babette’s Feast and the Power of Art Essay

When each deadlines are met and time is out in my favor, star can usually figure me sitting comfortably on the couch with a bowl of popcorn on one hand and a remote control on the other. ceremony movies has always been one of my favorite leisure. Although I try to see films from different parts of the world as much as I can, perhaps desire the many others who belong in my generation, Hollywood movies are always top of the list. Seldom do I find fascination with other international productions in particular European ones. They are slow-paced, often more serious and less entertaining than those produced in Hollywood.However, watching the Danish film Babettes Feast made me reckon and view European films with a different lens one with a little more appreciation and interest. While the slow pacing is inherent to this large-minded of cinema, they also present a different style and meat altogether, leaving more room for its audience to think rather than just instant satisfaction o ffered by most American movies. This is very evident in Babettes Feast. In its subtlety and simplicity, together with the use of brilliant metaphors and symbolisms, it was able to uncover the transforming strength of art with beauty and sophistication.Babettes Feast tells the story of two pious sisters whose lives were changed by their French servant, who was apparently an unspoken artist, Babette. One of the images that constantly reappear all throughout the movie, especially in the beginning, is the image of the dried fish. This symbolizes the vitality of Martina and Philippa and perhaps even those in the community who was devoted to the preaching of their father that to attain salvation, one must deprive himself all physical or worldly pleasures including food. They lived a life of unhealthy simplicity and unreasonable meagerness. Their simple and puritan way of keep is so extreme that it has become dreary and ironically lifeless, like a dried fish in contrast to the delectabl e meal of Babette in the end. Another powerful symbolism is Babettes washing of the window from the outside.It speaks to me as if Babette was trying to show the sisters what they have been missing for the longest time. Their world and their lives are like to the dirty windows Babette were washing dark and clouded by their austere beliefs. Because of the hyperbolic focus on spirituality, they were blinded from the beauty and joy of the outside world, from the other things that life has to offer including the love from men they rejected when they were young. Through Babettes feast, which they initially refuted as they believed it was sinful, the sisters were opened to a new world from which they were hiding, to a reality where righteousness and bliss .. kiss, where the spirit and the flesh are both nourished and nurtured without choosing or isolating one from the other. This reconciliation is symbolized by the candlelight snuffed out in the end.Aside from Babettes art which is the sumptuous food she prepared very well, another integral element that played a significant role in the transformation of the sisters and the other members of the congregation is the character of General Loewenhielm, one of the sisters ex lover. If the sisters lived a deprived life, a deprivation not of accident but of choice, the planetary was at the other end of the spectrum. He symbolizes everything the sisters were not luxurious and powerful.He enjoyed a life of abundance and glory. Because of this background, the general honestly and wholeheartedly enjoyed the feast piece the others remained skeptical, refusing to surrender to their delight of the food. It was also the general who had this realization that there is joy both from bodily and spiritual nourishment, as he was dumfounded to partake in such kind of dinner in an unexpected place, considering it then as a grace and blessing from the heavens.All in all, Babette as an artist was successful. wish a masterpiece that brin gs joy to its audience, her feast was able to transform and bring love and happiness on the table, to the people who received her art. And this is what is meant by her statement, an artist is neer poor. Her talent, which was able to transcend the material, and her ability to do her very best, is her wealth.Indeed, art has a very strong power to transform. Not only did Babettes art alter the characters in the story but the movie itself, as a form of art, was able to transform its viewers, me included. It may not be able to provide the sportswoman from the thrilling and idealistic yet shallow plot of Hollywood movies but it was able to deliver something deeper and more delicate, something worthy of admiration and appreciation.