2003

June 16, 2004
Camera 3
Canada
English / Spanish
145 minutes

Documentary about the history, benefits, and most importantly, detriments of the legal entity known as the Corporation. At 145 minutes, this film isn't short. But what amazed me was that it packed more information into its running time than any documentary I've ever seen, and I see a lot of them. About one-third of all films I see can be described as non-fiction.

Recently there has been a number of docs getting commercial release: CONTROL ROOM, FAHRENHEIT 911, FOG OF WAR, SUPERSIZE ME, to name just a few. Most people, and I am no exception, go into these films with a point of view. You are for or against GW Bush, you know McDonald's is bad for you, you are aware that the US military skews the coverage of war. The chances of a documentary changing your mind are pretty slim. It's more of a solidification of beliefs already held.

The thing about THE CORPORATION is, unless you're living off the grid in the mountains somewhere, you can't be inherently _against_ corporations. You can't be anti-corporation at your core. They run our communication, entertainment, clothing, and scientific communities. We can be against some of the bad things they do, but it's hard to rail against corporations while enjoying a Venti Mocha from Starbucks, which I enjoy quite often, I must say.

The film had to do several tricky things. Make us understand how corporations came into being in the legal sense, let us see that some corporations are doing their best to answer to both their community and their shareholders, while also showing us how dangerous they can be.

At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all I also have to say that I usually don't learn much at these documentaries. If it's a subject I am interested in, I have usually read about it before seeing a film about it. THE CORPORATION was so jam-packed with info that my head was spinning. I kept saying to myself, you have to remember this fact, only to be given another thing I had no idea about. The trouble seems to have started when the Supreme Court ruled that corporations had the same rights as individuals, with the same protections as people had. The film then sets out to psychoanalyze what sort of human a corporation is. In the course of this analysis, the new info (at least to me) came fast and furious.

I didn't know that Bechtel privatized the water supply in Bolivia, making it illegal to collect rainwater. I didn't know that the first corporation was formed to pump out water from coal mines in England. I didn't know that there was a CEO of a carpet company, a man named Ray Anderson, who had pledged to be self-sustaining in the next few years. I didn't know that there wasn't a law in Florida banning a news report from being purposely false. I didn't know that dairy cow supplements had not been "the most thoroughly tested product in human history", but rather injected into a few lab mice. I felt like I needed a companion text book to follow along.

This fact-packing made it much more interesting than, say, Supersize Me, where we know exactly what's going to happen as it happens. That film survives on its humor, with small patches of information. This one somehow connects all its facts into a coherent package.

I need to go back to something. I grew angry, as expected, when I saw the sweatshops and human rights violations. But I have bought cheap t-shirts, and eaten at chain restaurants, and drank overpriced coffee. I don't know what the solution is. Neither does the film. It doesn't rail against corporations, but while watching you can't help but feel uneasy about the whole thing. When the courts ruled that actual human genes can be patented, it suddenly became no laughing matter.

I was most impressed with the way that so many facts were wrapped up so palatably.

**** LaSalle
***^ Schwarzbaum