Currently available on DVD: "Kings of Pastry"

Early on, not all the signs are promising for Kings of Pastry, a documentary by the veteran team of Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker (Moon Over Broadway, The War Room). The jaunty version of The Marseillaise that keeps popping up on the soundtrack contributes to an overall feeling of fustiness and inconsequence as we’re introduced to several contenders for membership in the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, an exclusive fraternity of pastry chefs.

But the film builds in interest and intrigue as it goes along, helped immeasurably by the directors’ choice — canny or fortunate or both — of the astonishingly good-natured and likable Jacquy Pfeiffer, an Alsace-born, Chicago-based chef, as their chief protagonist.

The filmmakers follow Pfeiffer and two other chefs during the weeks and months of preparation for the judging, held once every four years. Sweets ranging from delicate cookies to ruinously extravagant sculptures are made, tasted, thrown out and made again. There is unintentional pastry-chef humor — “There’s no law about nougatine”; “Your table is a mess, horreur” — and, once the competition begins, nerve-racking suspense and bittersweet resolution. You’ll be surprised by how devastating the collapse of a chocolate tower can be.