But the feast is more than food, you say. The feast also had bickering people, two defeated and depressed hosts, and a close knit group with an outsider present. A recipe for disaster if I ever saw one. And yet, this magical feast, created by one person, with the group entering trying to resist it, and determined to be depressed, made everyone happy and festive. Maybe heroine could do that, but not turtle soup.
Festivity requires some form of merrymaking, some effort and acquiescence on the participants part.
They have to want to be festive. But no, Babette could do it all by her lavish, selfless, purposeless gesture. Sorry folks, but a meal's a meal, and last time I checked, it don't cure depression unless you laced it with Prozac. But to quote a famous Comedian, 'That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.' . 81 'Till the horn blows, in a place called Armageddon.