Already available for digital download and coming to DVD next Monday, April 1: HANDS ON A HARD BODY
SR Bindler’s cult classic about a Texan endurance competition screened extensively upon its debut in 1997, with festival berths at Dallas, Santa Barbara, Nashville, and Karlovy Vary, as well as various awards from Florida, Austin, Los Angeles, and Gen Art, among others. On the occasion of the opening of the stage musical adaptation earlier this month, the doc has been digitally remastered and made available for digital download, and will be re-released on DVD next week, the first time in a decade. The film has also enjoyed a recent series of special screenings via NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction, the Texas Independent Film Network, and elsewhere as a lead up to the re-release.
Set outside a Nissan auto dealership in Longview TX, Bindler’s engaging film chronicles the 1995 titular endurance competition, where nearly two dozen people attempt to outlast one another to claim a brand new pickup truck. All they have to do to win is be the last person standing who has kept his or her hands on the vehicle for as long as it takes, with only one five-minute break every hour, and one fifteen-minute break every six hours. As distraction and sleep-deprivation set in, the determined contestants – a range of types, from farmers to marines to the staunchly religious – start to lose it, struggling to keep their minds and bodies in sync to claim their prize. The film is an immensely likeable, gripping portrait of a peculiar publicity stunt and those who decide to take a shot at prize that’s literally within their reach. Pre-dating competition docs like SPELLBOUND and the peak of reality TV competition shows like SURVIVOR and BIG BROTHER by several years, Bindler shows immense restraint, observing his subjects and the strangeness of the contest without passing judgement, and instead finds their common humanity. He carefully constructs his story to highlight the tension as, one-by-one, the field narrows to the finalists, and a delirious winner emerges. The result is a true classic of the form, an evergreen documentary that celebrates both the quirks and the virtues of everyday people.
what (not) to doc 