The Secret of the Grain

Never sagging, it unfolds over 2 1/2 hours. Nothing is overexplained. Indeed, it takes us time to suss out Slimane's various familial relationships.

Time stretches out to the limits of endurance, Slimane's and ours, and there are moments toward the conclusion of this picture when you will want to scream and throw things at the screen, but it's mesmerizing. When it does end, suddenly, it feels a little

A ponderous tragedy about put-upon manhood? A verite snoop into cultures that are sexually mingled but publicly uneasy? A pill to be swallowed in the name of serious filmgoing? Maybe all of these.

The Secret of the Grain takes one man, his children, their spouses and babies, his ex-wife, his girlfriend, her daughter, and his friends and turns it all into a masterpiece about the strange power of food -- to heal, unite, exasperate.

Rather than observing this family, we feel we are part of it, and that draws us in as nothing else can.