I just saw an amazing documentary movie last night, The Corporation. I remember when this film came out in 2003, and I remember dismissing it as just another preachy and hysterical rant. Well, I was very wrong.

The movie’s rather sensational “hook” is that if you observe the behavior of modern-day corporations in the context of an individual (since corporations are, in a certain legal sense, people) you get a personality profile not unlike criminal sociopathy. What’s great about the film, though, is that they let the Captains of Industry speak out in their own words. These guys are really deluded– one exec (sorry, I can’t remember from which company because I am a flake) waxes rhapsodic about a world in which every natural resource, from the air we breathe to rainwater from the sky, is bought and sold in a global marketplace. Basically, these guys tell themselves that they are protecting the environment by attempting to own every molecule of it. (This is the basic idea behind the “emissions credits” that Bush has been yakking about.)

On the other hand, there’s also an interview with Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, one of the world’s largest carpet manufacturers, who’s on a personal mission to bring “100% sustainability” to his industry. He’s actually been fairly successful in the past ten years reducing things like oil consumption and water use in his own company, while increasing profits. This guy is leading the good fight– but all of this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the marketplace.

Anyway, none of these issues is in and of itself new to me, but this is the first time I’d seen it all brought together in such an entertaining whole. Depressing, but entertaining. Rent it!