American Documentary

34 x 25 x 36 is Jesse Epstein's third installment in a trilogy of films (along with The Guarantee and the Sundance award-winning Wet Dreams and False Images) examining issues of body image from quirky and revealing angles. This time, we are taken into the inner workings of the Patina V Mannequin Factory in City of Industry, Calif., where the artistry, craft and marketing that go into creating "the ideal woman of the moment" — in plastic — are accompanied by a remarkable amount of reflection on just what that ideal means (one thing it means is a 34" x 25" x 36" figure). Patina V is a place where the owner will tell women (and then run for cover), "There are no perfect bodies out there. We make the perfect body." And the chief designer harkens back to the roots of his craft not only in French 19th-century wax figures but also in the religious icons of medieval times.