This extraordinary and entertaining documentary tells the story of how this insignificant chair, often mocked by many, has taken over the world. How it destroys livelihoods and makes wealth, how it threatens the environment and good taste, and how it has become essential to millions for whom it’s just a chair and nothing more. The director and his crew trace 1,000,000,000 (one billion) plastic chairs in six countries on five continents, from an industrial area in northern Italy through a village in Uganda to a Brazilian favela. During the journey, they discover the history of the chair’s production and the specific ways of present-day usage. Through the symbolic role of the chair, the film also presents the complex world of consumer society. It’s a design history and globalization-criticizing work that interprets the contradictions of functionality and beauty, capitalism and participation, consumption and recycling, and the consequences of the blurred boundaries between them.
