Feast of the Epiphany

The filmmakers materialize a fascinating cinematic language that interrogates itself about matters of spontaneity and manipulation, man-made products and earth-given treasures, simplicity and sophistication, and how these all intersect.

In “Feast of the Epiphany,” a narrative-documentary hybrid, the line between fiction and reality is demarcated quite clearly, even as those two modes remain in constant dialogue — and the conceit is entrancing precisely because of its elusiveness.

Its sensitivity to how something as seemingly ordinary as food can have an immense emotional impact is consistently and unobtrusively profound.

What most strikes in Feast of the Epiphany is a sense of conviction and fidelity, a willingness to document things as they are: unvarnished and imperfect.

It is easier to like Feast of the Epiphany as an idea for an uncompromising film than it is to reconcile its pretensions.