Film Review: The Corporation

In 1900 corporations were a very small part of American cultural life. In the 2000s the Corporation plays the role once played by the Catholic Church, the Monarchy, or the Communist Party in other eras.

The Corporation has lots of stuff like this - facts, sometimes quite involved, which are shocking when presented so barefacedly.

Although it's an activist film, The Corporation is an intelligent film, showing multiple points of view and essentially letting the viewer make their own conclusions.

The key message of the film is: capitalism is out of control. Corporations are out of control.

It's best described by the courageous Ray Anderson, founder of Interface Carpets, who faced up to the impact his company had on the environment, and started making changes.

Anderson describes the current state of the business world like this: It's like the early days of flying when men in bird suits would launch off a cliff and, freefalling, believe they were flying.

Collectively we are all freefalling, but some of us believe we are flying, because the wind is still blowing in our hair. But others can see the ground.

Dramatic stuff! Is there anything we can do? Yes. It's at the end.

The DVD of The Corporation is fantastic - one disc of movie plus lots and lots and lots of background stuff. Second disc is a smorgasbord of extra interview material from people featured in the film, including Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Peter Drucker, Pfizer CEO Tom Kline, Naomi Klein, and many more.

The whole package is a remarkable example of making the most of what you've got when you have a camera and a world to document.