We move from a film whose characters talk and don't eat to a film where folks eat but won't talk. This Isak Dinesen adaptation is set in the nineteenth century on Denmark's remote Jutland coast, where the life of a village revolves around two pious ladies, the unmarried daughters of the founder of a Protestant sect. Both were great beauties with beloved suitors, but in middle age life is devoted to good works, clean thoughts, and bland food. Into their lives comes Babette (Stéphane Audran), refugee from the Paris Commune, who becomes their cook and domestic assistant. Years pass before Babette has occasion to reveal the artist in herself-and the secret of her inner beauty. She prepares the meal of a lifetime, but the sisters, fearing witchcraft in the terrapin, sacrilege in the vol-au-vents, have made all agree not to talk about the heathen experience. Despite its silent reception, Babette's feast will reconcile "righteousness and bliss" in a manner the old pastor never could have dreamed.