Giliap
| Giliap | |
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Swedish DVD cover
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| Directed by | Roy Andersson |
| Produced by |
Kalle Boman Göran Lindgren |
| Written by | Roy Andersson |
| Starring |
Thommy Berggren Mona Seilitz Willie Andréason |
| Music by | Björn Isfält |
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Release date
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Running time
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137 min. |
| Country | Sweden |
| Language | Swedish |
Giliap is a 1975 Swedish drama film directed by Roy Andersson, starring Thommy Berggren as a man who takes a job as a waiter at a run-down hotel. It was a financial and critical failure, and it led to Andersson's not making another feature film for 25 years. Andersson has admitted that the film contains flaws, and he claims that the main reason for them was that he was not completely in control of the production, and therefore he had to compromise in several scenes. He has also suggested that the audience was not ready for the film, expecting it to be more similar to his previous film A Swedish Love Story: "I think they didn't understand what I was doing. Later, when Kubrick came out with Barry Lyndon, people accepted that - it's the same mood. But these things take time." The film is notable for its stylised settings, resembling what would later be seen in a more refined form in Andersson's Songs from the Second Floor and You, the Living.
A man arrives in a Swedish small town to work as a waiter at the run-down Hotel Busarewski (a play on the Swedish word "buse" - "crook"). He is installed in a small room, and soon begins to serve customers under the supervision of a strict, wheelchair-using manager suffering from an exaggerated self image.
The man befriends two co-workers: the talkative Gustav "The Count" Svensson and the beautiful waitress Anna. Anna says that she is only there working temporarily, just like the man himself, and that she will soon move on to work at a seaside hotel.
After work one day Anna takes the man to her borrowed apartment and tries to persuade him to go away with her somewhere. She tries to hug him but he is reluctant and returns to his room. There The Count visits him and reveals a plan he has that would bring them both lots of money. But in order to realize it they will first have to free a friend of The Count who happens to be in jail. The Count gives the man the code name "Giliap" to use during the operation.
Later Anna tries to have a talk with Giliap about feelings. She thinks he is mysterious, but Giliap claims that his secret is that he doesn't have any secrets. Anna says that she fears that he is going to take all her feelings and then just disappear.
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Wikipedia