Giliap
Encyclopedia
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
.
.
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.
The rescue operation for The Count's friend fails because of poor preparation and ends in confusion. After fleeing, The Count becomes seriously ill, and lying in his bed surrounded by colleagues he asks for Anna - who is at first reluctant but eventually appears, to The Count's satisfaction.
Later Giliap has bought a flower bouquet
for Anna, but arriving at her apartment he is greeted by The Count who tells him she has left for that seaside hotel. Giliap goes there, finds her and embraces her. She starts to cry and they share dinner in a room she is sharing with another girl working at the same hotel.
The Count arrives at the seaside hotel and asks for whiskey. In the morning Anna once again tries to persuade Giliap to go away with her, before leaving for work. Outside she runs into The Count, who shows her lots of money, but she dismisses him. He then brings out a gun and shoots her.
Giliap and Anna's roommate walk out and find the money shattered all over the beach and start to collect it, before discovering Anna's body in the sand. Afterwards Anna's friends leaves on a train, leaving Giliap alone.
. Sverker Andréason wrote in Chaplin: "These people are evasively walking around each other, saying curious things of the type 'we are destruction people' and 'we live like migratory birds' and in the end I get the impression that Roy Andersson has got his whole philosophy of life from some film club that has gone through the dark French pre-war cinema with him, you know the one in which Jean Gabin
always got shot right on the final step towards liberation."
After the initial reviews the film however gained some recognition, both in Sweden and abroad. In Expressen
Lars Forssell
, a member of the Swedish Academy
, urged for everybody to go and see it, arguing that this film should be viewed the same way as a poem collection by Göran Sonnevi
should be read, and further comparing the atmosphere to the poetry of Gustaf Fröding
.
's 1996 comedy series Percy tårar
one of the sketches involves an archetypical Swedish cinéaste, speaking unfavourably about Ingmar Bergman
's Fanny and Alexander
and claiming Giliap to be the only decent Swedish film from the last 25 years.
Cinema of Sweden
Swedish cinema is known as producing many critically acclaimed movies, and during the 20th century was the most prominent of Scandinavia. This is largely due to the popularity and prominence of the directors Ingmar Bergman, Victor Sjöström, and more recently Lasse Hallström and Lukas...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Roy Andersson
Roy Andersson
Roy Andersson is a Swedish film director, best known for his films A Swedish Love Story and Songs from the Second Floor. More than any other, Songs from the Second Floor succeeded in cementing his personal style — a style characterized by long takes, absurdist comedy, stiff caricaturing of...
, starring Thommy Berggren
Thommy Berggren
Thommy Berggren is a Swedish actor. He is known for having starred in several films directed by Bo Widerberg and was often considered as one of the foremost Swedish film and theatre actors from the early 60s to the mid 2000s when he retired. He starred in the Oscar nominated Raven's End , directed...
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
A Swedish Love Story
A Swedish Love Story is a 1970 Swedish romantic drama directed by Roy Andersson, starring Ann-Sofie Kylin and Rolf Sohlman as two teenagers falling in love. Inspired by the Czechoslovak New Wave, the film was Andersson's feature film debut and was successful in Sweden and abroad. It was entered...
: "I think they didn't understand what I was doing. Later, when Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
came out with Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon
Barry Lyndon is a 1975 British-American period romantic war film produced, written, and directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray which recounts the exploits of an 18th century Irish adventurer...
, 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
Songs from the Second Floor
Songs from the Second Floor is a 2000 Swedish film written and directed by Roy Andersson. It presents a series of disconnected vignettes that together interrogate aspects of modern life. The film uses many quotations from the work of the Peruvian poet César Vallejo as a recurring motif...
and You, the Living
You, the Living
You, the Living is a 2007 Swedish film written and directed by Roy Andersson. The film is an exploration on the "grandeur of existence," centered around the lives of an overweight woman, a disgruntled psychiatrist, a heartbroken groupie, a carpenter, a business consultant, an elementary school...
.
Plot
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 imageSelf image
A person's self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others A person's self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change,...
.
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.
The rescue operation for The Count's friend fails because of poor preparation and ends in confusion. After fleeing, The Count becomes seriously ill, and lying in his bed surrounded by colleagues he asks for Anna - who is at first reluctant but eventually appears, to The Count's satisfaction.
Later Giliap has bought a flower bouquet
Flower bouquet
A flower bouquet is a collection of flowers in a creative arrangement. There are different kinds including nosegay, crescent, and cascading bouquets. Flower bouquets are often given for special occasions such as birthdays or anniversaries. They are also used extensively in weddings. Traditionally...
for Anna, but arriving at her apartment he is greeted by The Count who tells him she has left for that seaside hotel. Giliap goes there, finds her and embraces her. She starts to cry and they share dinner in a room she is sharing with another girl working at the same hotel.
The Count arrives at the seaside hotel and asks for whiskey. In the morning Anna once again tries to persuade Giliap to go away with her, before leaving for work. Outside she runs into The Count, who shows her lots of money, but she dismisses him. He then brings out a gun and shoots her.
Giliap and Anna's roommate walk out and find the money shattered all over the beach and start to collect it, before discovering Anna's body in the sand. Afterwards Anna's friends leaves on a train, leaving Giliap alone.
Cast
- Thommy BerggrenThommy BerggrenThommy Berggren is a Swedish actor. He is known for having starred in several films directed by Bo Widerberg and was often considered as one of the foremost Swedish film and theatre actors from the early 60s to the mid 2000s when he retired. He starred in the Oscar nominated Raven's End , directed...
as "Giliap" - Mona SeilitzMona SeilitzMona Seilitz was a Swedish film and television actress and entertainer. She was considered to be a veteran of both Swedish dramatic and comedic television....
as Anna Gustavsson - Willie Andréason as Gustav Svensson, "The Count"
- Lars-Levi Læstadius as Kreip
- Henry Olhans as "The Vulture"
- Rainer Mieth as Fat chef
- Julie Bernby as Singer
- Arne Leif Nielsen as Simonsson
- Pernilla AugustPernilla AugustPernilla August is a Swedish actress, director and script-writer. Being one of Sweden's leading actresses and a long time collaborator with director Ingmar Bergman, she won the Best Actress Award at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival for her role in his The Best Intentions...
as Girl at Summer Hotel
Reception
The reviews were very negative with almost no exception, calling it pretentious, old fashioned and reactionary on the level of a high school student caught up in French films from the 30s1930s in film
The decade of the 1930s in film involved many significant films. 1939 was one of the biggest years in Hollywood.----Contents# Events# List of films: # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z....
. Sverker Andréason wrote in Chaplin: "These people are evasively walking around each other, saying curious things of the type 'we are destruction people' and 'we live like migratory birds' and in the end I get the impression that Roy Andersson has got his whole philosophy of life from some film club that has gone through the dark French pre-war cinema with him, you know the one in which Jean Gabin
Jean Gabin
-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...
always got shot right on the final step towards liberation."
After the initial reviews the film however gained some recognition, both in Sweden and abroad. In Expressen
Expressen
Expressen is one of two nationwide evening tabloid newspapers in Sweden, the other being Aftonbladet. Expressen was founded in 1944; its symbol is a wasp and slogans "it stings" or "Expressen to your rescue", always on the reader's side....
Lars Forssell
Lars Forssell
Lars Hans Carl Abraham Forssell was a Swedish writer and member of the Swedish Academy. Forssell was a versatile writer who worked within many genres, including poetry, drama and songwriting. He was married from 1951 until his death to Kerstin Hane, and was the father of Jonas and Malte...
, a member of the Swedish Academy
Swedish Academy
The Swedish Academy , founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden.-History:The Swedish Academy was founded in 1786 by King Gustav III. Modelled after the Académie française, it has 18 members. The motto of the Academy is "Talent and Taste"...
, urged for everybody to go and see it, arguing that this film should be viewed the same way as a poem collection by Göran Sonnevi
Göran Sonnevi
Göran Sonnevi is a Swedish poet and translator. Sonnevi grew up in Halmstad; he studied literature and linguistics at the University of Lund, also getting librarian training...
should be read, and further comparing the atmosphere to the poetry of Gustaf Fröding
Gustaf Fröding
Gustaf Fröding was a Swedish poet and writer, born in Alster outside Karlstad in Värmland. The family moved to Kristinehamn in the year 1867. He later studied at Uppsala University and worked as a journalist in Karlstad....
.
In popular culture
In KillinggängetKillinggänget
Killinggänget is a Swedish comedy group, started in 1991. It is named after Glenn Killing, a character played by Henrik Schyffert who has appeared in many of their shows....
's 1996 comedy series Percy tårar
Percy tårar
Percy Tårar was a Swedish 6-part television show broadcast by SVT in 1996. It was Killinggänget's follow-up to the popular Nilecity 105,6. It was directed by Walter Söderlund and produced by Magdalena Jangard....
one of the sketches involves an archetypical Swedish cinéaste, speaking unfavourably about Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
's Fanny and Alexander
Fanny and Alexander
Fanny and Alexander is a 1982 Swedish fantasy drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. It was originally conceived as a four-part TV movie and cut in that version, spanning 312 minutes. A 188-minute version was created later for cinematic release, although this version was in fact the...
and claiming Giliap to be the only decent Swedish film from the last 25 years.