BABETTE'S FEAST

"this film is the only one of the 10,000 or so movies I have seen that I can characterize as truly flawless. It improves on subsequent viewings. " A note of caution: do not see ''Babette's Feast'' on an empty stomach. Before the film ends, the feast itself, which includes, among other things, fresh terrapin soup, quail in vol-au-vents, blinis, caviar and baba au rhum, may drive you out to the nearest three-star restaurant. It could be a dangerously expensive evening. Literary Ambrosia BABETTE'S FEAST, directed by Gabriel Axel; screenplay (Danish and French with English subtitles) ''Babette's Feast'' is set in the second half of the 19th century on Denmark's remote Jutland coast, in a small fishing village whose most notable inhabitants are a fervent Protestant pastor and his two beautiful, pious daughters, Martine and Filippa. Mindful of their responsibilities to their father and his reformist mission, each daughter turns down a beloved suitor. Martine's is a young officer, Filippa's a famous French opera star who has been vacationing on the Jutland coast. After their father's death, the two young women slip into unmarried middle age, carrying on the pastor's work with saintly dedication. One night, in the middle of a terrible storm, Babette (Stephane Audran) turns up at their door, battered by weather and circumstances, and carrying a letter of introduction from Filippa's opera singer, now old and retired. Having lost both her husband and son in the Paris Commune, Babette, he explains, needs political sanctuary. He begs the sisters to take her in. The sisters, who are nearly penniless, accept Babette's offer to act as their unpaid housekeeper. In time, Babette becomes an indispensable though ever enigmatic member of the household. Her Roman Catholicism is politely ignored. She brings order and efficiency to the sisters' lives as defenders of their father's aging flock, which, over the years, has become split by old grievances and jealousies. Babette cooks, cleans, washes and sews, always remaining aloof and proud, at a distance from her benefactors. All of this is by way of being the prelude to the film's extended, funny and moving final sequence, a spectacular feast, the preparation and execution of which reveal Babette's secret and the nature of her sustaining glory. It's not telling too much to report that this glory is Art - in Babette's case, a very special God-given talent. ''Babette's Feast'' is an affirmation of Art as the force by which, in the words of the old pastor (who never quite realized what he was saying), ''righteousness and bliss,'' otherwise known as the spirit and the flesh, shall be reconciled. with Guy Crosby, professor of food science and chemistry