Giliap

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 hotel.

Andersson admitted that the film contains flaws, and he said 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 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.

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.

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 30s.

Sverker Andréason wrote in the Swedish magazine Chaplin [sv]: "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.