The Visit a 1964 movie starring legendary actors Anthony Quinn and Ingrid Bergman is a intriguing movie. The movie blends all the ingredients of the dark side of human nature: greed, revenge and corruption. If you want to know the meaning of the cliché “money can buy anything,” this is the movie to watch. It will bring anyone that watches it to their knees. It’s the kind of movie that makes you think of what human beings are capable of, all humans.
Karla Zachanassian played to the hilt by Ingrid Bergman is the world’s richest woman. She returns to her birthplace, a poor, European town called Guellen. The town is having a depression when she visits, and it is the hopes of Guellen’s inhabitants that Karla will bail them out. They prepare for her visit as if God Himself was arriving. The red carpet treatment is an understatement. She arrives ahead of schedule and the town is caught off guard. When she gets off the train she seems cross, distant, cold, like a volcano that wanted to erupt on the whole town. Hundreds of the townspeople run to the railroad to greet her, but when they see her they are afraid to even approach her. They reminded me of what the Indians must’ve looked like when Columbus landed in the New World. She finally smiles and the town loosens up. She arrived with her bodyguards and her pet panther.
Karla greets the people and in the crowd she notices Serg, powerfully played by Anthony Quinn. Serg used to be her lover when she was 17. She reminds Serg of the passionate love they shared and even points out the pet names they had for each other, his being “Panther.” The conversation is a little unsettling for Serg, but he goes along with it after all he’s got to kiss up to her to get the money for the dying town.
During a banquet in Karla’s honor, Karla shocks the people by offering them 2 million dollars under one condition. They must execute Serg. She explains that when Serg was her lover, she got pregnant, and to get out of his responsibilities, he bribed two men and others to testify that Karla was a whore who slept with anyone in town. The town believed the rumors and ran Karla out of town. Karla had her child; the child was taken away from her, and died a year later. With no other choice Karla was forced to get into prostitution. She later marries a rich man.
At first the town was enraged with her request and thought she was joking. But Karla was not joking. Karla must get the town to side with her. Karla sends for alluring items for the townspeople. She wets their appetites with materialism and even offers credit, “buy now, and pay later.” The sort of thing that has gotten a lot people in trouble for ages. The town could not resist these tasty morsels and slowly turned on Serg and did whatever Karla wanted, yes, even murder. After all money can buy anything, even justice if need be. Serg is like a trapped animal in the town; he is ostracized, and terrorized by the citizens of Guellen. He tries to escape, but the citizens of Guellen have become lust-blinded monsters and stop him. He is their meal ticket.
Finallly Serg is forced to stand trial and he is officially sentenced to death. The day of the execution Karla announces that she will free Serg if one person thinks his sentence is unjust, but no one speaks out. Karla decides to free Serg anyway. Her revenge? Serg will have to live with the very people that try to kill him for money. It is as if Karla had a great big mirror and showed the townspeople “the man in the mirror,” an ugly reflection. These were normal people going through life just like you and me. They knew each other, they played together, did all things together. And one day like an ominous spirit, Karla, a woman filled with hate and bitterness arrives and shows them who they really are inside. Human beings are capable of anything for money. The power that comes from money can make a man hateful, murderous, and can collapse of the very foundation of morality. A powerful movie indeed. If you’ve not seen it, you must.
