Babette's Feast

A few weeks ago we watched the DVD of Babette's Feast again. What a great movie! The movie is based on a story by Isak Dinesen (the pen name of Karen Blixen) who is perhaps best known for her autobiographical novel "Out of Africa". Babette's Feast tells the story of two daughters of a pastor of a Danish sect based in a village in north Jutland, and how a French chef comes to be their servant. The movie culminates with the feast Babette prepares for the little congregation, much to their horror (at first) then delight when they begin enjoying the meal. This little description hardly does the film justice, and I would encourage any of you reading this to rent this cinematic gem sometime to experience it for yourself. The language is mostly Danish, with a little Swedish and French as well - but watching with the English subtitles is not too difficult.

This film caught my imagination when I first saw it perhaps because I saw some of my relatives in the characters in the movie. Their mannerisms, their piety, their restrained emotions, their simple seriousness and so forth. Then the artistic Babette enters their lives and breaks into their bleakness (which is echoed by the bleakness of the landscape in north Jutland), bringing true joy and love. Redemption comes in the most surprising ways sometimes.

When doing some research for our trip I discovered a website that listed all the locations used in the filming of Babette's Feast. The church that is seen throughout the film is called the Mårup Kirke, and is close to the village of Lønstrup on the northwest coast of Jutland in Denmark. Our train travel from Skjern to Frederikshavn will take us close to Lønstrup. I wanted to explore our options about how to get to the Mårup Kirke and so I checked into car rentals first. My thought was that we could drive out to the church for part of a day, then also drive out to Bindslev (about 20 kilometres away) to see the area where my Grandma's family came from. It turns out that renting a car for one day is not very economically feasible (over $275 for one day), and the car rental place had limited hours of operation as an added deterrent. So we had to set that plan aside.

Another plan was to get off the train in Hjørring, take a taxi from there to Lønstrup and the church. That is better, but still $66 each way. Then I discovered that there is regular bus service from Hjørring to Lønstrup for much less money. However this option would require us to walk from the bus depot to the church and back, a hike of 1.5 kilometres each way. Beth and I figured that shouldn't be a problem - so we are planning on doing this option (though weather may changes our plans).

Regardless of how we get there we will no longer be able to see the whole church, since most of it was removed last year. All that remains are the walls - the roof, pews and other furnishings have all been moved. The reason for this move is simple, the church is in danger of falling into the sea. When the church was first built it was over 200 metres from the coast. Over the decades the fierce winds and surf have eaten away the cliffs, and at the present time the church building sits less than 8 metres from the cliff! So rather than have the whole building crumble into the sea the authorities have moved it further inland, though the original walls were left where they were built.

A couple of hundred metres to the south of the church is the Rudbjerg Lighthouse, which also has suffered the effects of the harsh weather. This lighthouse is now half buried by a huge sand dune, this the result of the coastline slowly moving inland. Both these buildings are visual reminders of the power of nature, and part of the reason for going to see them is to see for ourselves the sands of time destroying the sanctuaries of humans. If there is a single visual image for the harshness of this region of the world this site may be it.

A couple of days ago a book of Isak Dinesen stories arrived in the mail, one which includes the story "Babette's Feast". This book will come along with us as we travel, and I plan to read this story on the train from Skjern to Hjørring in preparation for visiting this unique site. We also have managed to find an English translation of a Herman Bang novel (called Katinka) which we will also bring along (since we will be staying in the Herman Bang Hotel in Frederikshavn). I am trying to be deliberate in selecting what we bring along for reading material - so far I have a collection of C.S. Lewis writings called "Of Other Worlds", the Dinesen collection "Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard", the Herman Bang novel "Katinka", T.S. Eliot's play "Murder in the Cathedral" and a collection of writings about leaders in the Celtic church called "Stories of the Celtic Soul Friends" (including a section on St. Columba of Iona). We don't want to lug along too many books, but we do want some reading material for the times we are stuck in airports, train terminals, and so forth.

The only disappointing thing about the way we have been able to work out this little jaunt in north Jutland, is that we will not be able to go to Bindslev (which would have required renting a car). However our train will pass within 7 kilometres of the village, so we will get a good sense of the terrain. My great-grandfather on my grandma's side was born in Bindslev, and my great-grandmother was born in Budal (in the same region of Denmark). I could not even locate Budal on any map I could find, and thus Budal may well have disappeared off the map like so many small Saskatchewan villages. Unlike my grandfather's side of the family tree, where I have specific places to go visit (like the churches in Hanning and Finderup), I would have simply been looking at the area of Bindslev in a general way - so perhaps looking north from a train window will not be a whole lot less than what we would have seen travelling to the actual village in a car.

I end this post by reflecting on how much the sites we are planning to visit have been influenced by books, music and films. This serves to remind me of the importance of the arts in our lives, shaping our perception of the world, expanding our connection with the world beyond our own little circle of geography and culture. I hope that this blog may have some of the same impact on you who read about our pilgrimage... now exactly 4 weeks away!