My interpretation *spoilers*

I think this film is about how this person creates her own tragedy around her by the way she and her family have treated and influenced the community around them.

If you notice, the way she behaves towards the staff and the locals, she is a terse, cold hearted, obstinate and pig-headed woman.

She can only survive in a world where she can control people by exploiting them. And this is why I believe she fears going back to france (where she has a lot less control).

We know that her plantation doesn't fetch any money, but she is adament that they should continue to produce. She craves power and control over people and uses money and her looks to do it.

Her only language of communication with locals is that of money and she looks down on them. She gives bribes to bandits regularily without any care for its effects.

She does not care that her previous workers fear for their lives and have had threats on them.

She makes no small talk, happily buying and shipping the next batch of gullible people, literally like slaves with the promise of a paid job and food. When the slaves arrive they realise that their living conditions and beds are attrocious and in a dirty barn.

Which makes sense since she treats the labourers like animals.

Meanwhile the army and political power wants to take over the land from the whites. So in order to stay protected, the husband does deals with crooked gang leaders, while she shields the rebel leader, again to maintain power and control.

Its interesting that the huband and wife crave power and control, yet thay have none of it over their own son.

Meanwhile, the neglected son, who has never been "accepted" is reborn after he is spared by two curious kids. He lures them back and rebels against his own family's history of exploitation by trying to burn the place down.

The army then comes along and the oldest living relative finally does a deal with the army for sparing his life (or they can't be bothered to kill him).

The protagonist then arrives with the gang leader.

Now we don't know if she makes a deal with the army to visit her grandfather or whether she is also locked away with him in the burning barn.

But shes kills him either to (a) spare painful death (b) as revenge for letting the army in. (c) revenge for starting the plantation in the first place and contributing to the generations of slavery, bribery and warfare caused by the broader exploitations taking place. (what I believe to be the theme of the movie).