This film breaks new ground in the "trading-places, war-is-hell, Dickensian, environmental, docu-comedy" genre. During a freak lightning storm, the soul of a rich logging industry executive magically trades places with the soul of a tree. Hilarity ensues, as the man adjusts to life with leaves, bark, constantly getting shit on by birds, and having a huge, wooden trunk instead of a penis.
While sitting in the forest waiting to die, the executive learns what it's like to walk a mile in a tree's roots. Unfortunately, his ass is nailed with more magical lightning and he reappears in circa-1990 Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, as a young, Iraqi soldier. Lots of violent shit happens, thereby making the irrefutable case against ever going to war for any reason in any possible context.
More lightning, and now he's outside the window of a poor, gimpy kid who's eating a dinner of canned beans and Spam with his family on Christmas Eve, praying aloud for world peace. The man is touched by the vision, but he suddenly finds himself waking up in his own bed (and body). It is Christmas morning.
Deciding to act on his revelations, the executive converts his logging company into a non-profit Christmas tree manufacturing plant. He personally brings a Christmas tree to the gimpy kid's house, where he's chastised for participating in environmentally unfriendly charity. The kid tells him to replant all the trees he's cut down and give up eating the products of all living species. The man complies, dies of starvation, and is reborn as a tree. He lives on for eternity providing shade to a family of raccoons.
