Using Hi-8 video cameras, Bindler and crew chronicled the event, in a film that is less about the prize truck than it is about the characters who want to win it so badly. With the cameras rolling day and night, they become cozily familiar to one another, and to the viewer as well. There's Benny, a second-time contestant who won the truck in 1992 after standing for 83 hours, and who takes on the role of the seasoned sage: "It's like the movie 'Highlander,'" he says ominously. "There can be only one." Norma, who believes God has chosen her to win the truck, has the support of the local church members who form prayer circles and sing hymns in the parking lot. And Kelli, a young student, is fiercely determined to win the truck so she can sell it and get braces.

Much to the credit of the 29-year-old Bindler, who grew up in Longview, what easily could have turned into a cynical look at life in Middle America is instead an emotional glimpse into the core of human character. A graduate of New York University film school, Bindler is working on two more documentaries, one set in the Middle East and the other in Texas. From his home in Los Angeles, Bindler spoke with Salon Arts & Entertainment about making "Hands on a Hard Body," which has been seen in numerous festivals and is now playing in selected theaters across the country.

How did you choose this subject?

I saw the contest for the first time in 1992. I was home for the summer, and the local bar where everyone hangs out is right across the street from the Nissan dealership. I came out of the bar late one night and there were a couple hundred people at the dealership. It's pretty uncommon at that time of night in Longview for people to be congregating, so I walked over and saw the contest, was struck by the absurdity of it, hung out for 15 or 20 minutes, and then I left.

I went back to New York and started to write a screenplay based on some guys I knew in East Texas when I lived there, but I kept putting the screenplay away because I was finishing school. But when I got to L.A. three years later, I was working with Kevin Morris, an entertainment lawyer, and I started to tell him about the contest and the script I started to write years ago, and we decided to shoot the contest as a documentary.

A film like this borders on parody; it would have been easy to make fun of these people and the absurdity of the contest. How did you avoid that?

I think it's a very simple understanding that life, as Tennessee Williams said, is fantastic. And because it's fantastic, you don't need to amp it up any more than it already does for you. It was already a fantastic, exploitative event and I just didn't think that it needed, on my end, to make it more so.

And I genuinely found the people shooting from heart: very honest, very open, very vulnerable and I'm not just the kind of person to take advantage of that. By the end of the contest, I felt a fondness for all these people, and as an editor, after you watch the footage three or four times, you catch all their nuances, you get to know all these people. I felt a responsibility to represent them as they are and how I perceived them. I didn't think they [deserved to be] mocked ... my experience there wasn't a parody, it was real people going through a real situation, even if it was hyper-realistic. The people had real concerns, real needs, real wants. I didn't want to make fun of them.

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