(Belgium; 74 min.) Certainly Gust Van den Berghe was put on Earth so that Harmony Korine will have someone to talk to at film festivals. With hand-drawn titles and a cast of actors with Down syndrome, this sometimes shining, sometimes aggravating experimental film recasts of the story of the Three Kings. The 24-year-old first-time director sets this modern Nativity story in a countryside of such haunted fogbound glow as hasn’t been seen since Bela Tarr’s Satantango. We begin to feel that time hasn’t moved since the Middle Ages; in the shapes of the actors (foreshortened, sly and chubby) is evidence of that love of flesh so essential to Flemish art. It looks timeless, which makes a burst of night-club color, the rain-wetted towers of a city center or the intrusion of a nuclear power plant seem all the more surprising. Through its endorsement of simple faith at all costs, of the foolishness that confounds the wise, it stays spiritual. Thus, at times it becomes that rarity, an overdetermined provocation. Plus, occasionally the actors get their tongues tied on the homely yet lofty sentiments. Standout in the cast: Paul Mertens as the worldliest one of the trio; his top hat, string tie and mannerisms recall W.C. Fields. (RvB)

March 2 at 8:45pm, Camera 12; March 6 at 11:30am, Camera 12; March 9 at 2:30pm, Camera 12