Giliap

Anxious to experiment after the success of A Swedish Love Story, Roy Andersson embarked on a radical change of style with his next project, which was over three years in the making. With Giliap he embraced the cinematic aesthetic that would become his trademark: deep-focus images, long takes with a static camera, and scenes that slowly build from emptiness to utter absurdity. The staff members at a dead-end Swedish hotel kill time in different ways: scullery worker Gustav gives himself a nickname (“The Count”) and attempts to set up an “American-style gangster syndicate,” while the new waiter, a drifter nicknamed Giliap, has his eye on Anna, an attractive waitress. Andersson’s shift in style earned praise (Variety proclaimed Giliap “visually a film in the masterpiece class”) and also condemnation from audiences unused to such slow-building scenes. Now its aesthetic appears contemporary with minimalists like Aki Kaurismäki or Tsai Ming-liang, though its sense of the daytime’s terrors remains Andersson’s own.