The Visit (Der Besuch der alten Dame)

"The world turned me into a whore. I shall turn the world into a brothel."
 
Claire Zachanassian returns to the town of her youth, Güllen, as a rich and powerful lady. Decades earlier, she had been forced to leave as she was expecting the illegitimate child of Alfred Ill. He had denied paternity, and with the help of false witnesses had won the lawsuit initiated by Claire. Now an American billionairess, Claire wants to take revenge on him and the people of the town. Having bought up all the firms in Güllen and put them out of business, she now offers the townspeople one billion on the condition that one of them kills Ill. Initially scandalised, but increasingly enthralled by the prospect of the money, the Gülleners degenerate into a buying frenzy and demand of Ill that he voluntarily take his own life for the common good.
 
The aspect of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s malevolent mind-game that interests director Bastian Kraft in particular, is how we deal with the wounds that have been inflicted on us and to what extent taking the law into one’s own hands is complicit with the social dominance of capital.