On its release in 1975, Variety called Giliap “visually a film in the masterpiece class...a thing of sheer beauty to behold and to listen to. Each frame has perfection in composition and color, the editing makes dramatic sense as does the music.” The film's minimal plot involves three loners on the staff of a luxury hotel in its declining years: Giliap, the waiter; Anna, the waitress; and The Count, a scullery worker who would be a gangster, all paradoxically described as “migratory birds, doomed to fly nowhere.” The tension of the paradox is never released, and, Variety comments, “the acting is perfectly in tune with Andersson's way of telling his non-story.” Andersson's use of long, static scenes and his concentration on environment rather than character creates a mood of emotional isolation that is harrowing.