Giliap

Plot synopsis:
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.
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.

Tags: psychedelic, murder, romantic

Review:
Pictures to remember. I was about 17 when I saw Giliap for the first time. Now I'm 41 years old and it have never left me. It's a poetic tale about dreams in a gray and joyless world. It's epic in a way you almost never see, a slow tempo and very carefully chosen pictures. Giliap is a forerunner for Roy Andersson's "Sånger från andra våningen (2000) If you like that, I recommend this one too.. Magical. I remember how this film feels - vividly. I watched it at age 14 or 15 and was completely overwhelmed by it. Slowmoving, yes, magisterial, but brimming with sensibility and content. After being condemned to the periphery of the film industry after the commercial failure of 'Giliap', director Andersson had a belated and very much deserved international comeback with 'Songs from the Second Floor' and 'You the Living'.Since then 'Giliap' is among a handful of films that I have been clamoring for on DVD, alongside Resnais' 'Providence', Stroheim's 'Greed', the original 'Island of Lost Souls' etc. etc. And alongside the great masterworks of Swedish director Bo Widerberg. So far, no luck ... Please, give us 'Giliap' on DVD, it remains - I sincerely believe - among the most magical of European films.. A job at the Doom Hotel. Arriving at the dreary Busarewsky Hotel (the name, to Swedes, sounds both vaguely Central European and like a pun on 'busar', "goons") the young waiter Giliap soon finds himself in a maze of silent rules, gossip, violence and budding, pathetic revolt. But who can he trust? The film appears to be both absurd and over-the-top serious, and watching it you'll find yourself asking just where is it dead serious and where does satire or (self-)parody start? The slow tempo and long, brooding silences before sometimes outrageously weighted lines, the gloomy lighting and the sudden hysterical swings of the people in the film - all of this was certainly intended, but the purpose of the film is by no means clear, so the viewer has to decide for himself just what enemy Giliap is fighting or what he is searching.If you've seen "Songs from the Second Floor" you'll recognize some of the style - the long, slow shots, the blunt, searching or unresponsive dialog lines, the dreary, somehow naked and unprotected facial expressions. This is the antithesis of "Beverly Hills 90210", but a very rewarding and sometimes weirdly funny movie experience.. The reason it took twenty years before we got to see another movie from Roy Andersson.. The first thing that strikes you after watching this movie, is that you've wasted two hours of your precious time. This is because the plot is extremely slowly paced: I usually don't mind watching pictures where there's not a lot of action, but then I want content! There also seems to be no connection between the ending and the rest of the movie, something which ought to disturb most viewers. Taking all this into consideration, there's really no wonder that the revenues from this movie only covered about 1/20 of the budget!