Giliap

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James C While watching this film, I felt lots of emotions, but most were not good. From the aimless plot to the awful characters, the movie was bad. I honestly tried to get the most out of it possible, but it eventually became a pointless waste of time. The first half of the movie was terrible. The dynamics and story in the hotel were awfully boring, and the characters were still feeling new an hour in: Giliap was like a robot, Anna was annoying (she was still by far the best character), and Gustav, while occasionally cool, was confusing and off-putting. Up until this point, I never had to rewatch the first half of a movie 3 times to figure out what was happening, but this movie was atrocious. I was at least able to watch the second half once and figure everything out, but the plot was still unsatisfying. The story was meant to feel like a tragedy. It slowly built up this relationship with Giliap and Anna, until Gustav “accidentally” shoots her and kills her in the end. When Giliap found out, it was the only time anyone had run in the entire film, and his moment by Anna’s body was a terrible distance shot that only lasted about 30 seconds. I was glad this movie ended, and I wasted 2+ hours of my life watching this. I now see why Roy Anderson didn’t release another film for 25 years, and if I were him, I probably wouldn’t either. The film was like watching wet paint dry for 2 hours, only with good lighting. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 11/09/25 Full Review eric b Before the world discovered Swedish director Roy Andersson with "Songs from the Second Floor" and subsequent films, he offered this 1975 tale about life in a miserable hotel restaurant. Appropriately, it begins with a funeral reception. An unnamed, wholly desolate man arrives to work as a waiter. A cute waitress develops an attraction to him but, oops, a shabby co-worker (who ironically calls himself "The Count") already has a long-time, hopeless fixation on her. Along the way, there's also an attempted criminal scheme that fails to add intrigue. Not much plot emerges beyond these scraps. The romantic struggles gain some heat in the last act, but most of the 130 minutes are spent on Andersson's typically dour, disconnected vignettes. He hasn't quite nailed down his tone yet, however, so there's not that tricky, surreal mix of black humor and tragedy that becomes so unnerving in his later works. Laughs? Few to none in this overlong portrait of bedraggled, unsmiling characters. On the other hand, "Giliap" has none of the shaky production values one might expect - Andersson was already a polished filmmaker. Keep your eye on the parrot. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Giliap

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