Giliap

Giliap. SE (c) 1975 Sandrew. D+SC: Roy Andersson. DP: John Olsson - Eastmancolor - 1:1,66. Starring Thommy Berggren (Giliap), Mona Seilitz (Anna). 137 min. - [This film had been seen in Finland only on TV in 1981 and in Walhalla screenings in 1976.] - Official Finnish premiere without subtitles at an open-air night screening at 22.00 in Kesäkino Engel, 15 August 2008. [Focus problems in the open-air screening.] - Roy Andersson's second feature film received so crushing reviews that it took 25 year for the director to make his third feature film, Sånger från andra våningen. - Now it is easy to see that much of the vision of his recent films is already present in Giliap. There is much in common with early cinema: static shots, long takes. - The boy (given the nickname Giliap) comes to serve as a waiter in the restaurant of Hotel Busarewski (in a small town? or in a small district of a city?). He meets the young waitress Anna, who is more interested in contacting him than he is in her. One of their mates, The Count, has a gun and plans robbery. Anna leaves Busarewski and moves to a sea resort hotel. Giliap follows her, but so does The Count... - The film is not story-driven. It is anti-dramatic and non-psychological. Much rather it is a meditative experience.

Du levande

Sinä elävä / You, the Living. Sweden (c) 2007 Roy Andersson Filmproduktion and six other companies. P+D+SC: Roy Andersson. 92 min. Finnish subtitles by Anitra Paukkula. Released by Cinema Mondo. Viewed on Friday, 2 November 2007, at Maxim 2, Helsinki. Roy Andersson's fourth feature film in his 40-year career. His unique style has a resemblance to early cinema: long shots, long takes, no camera movement, depth of field, faces heavily made up. There is a strange pallid light in the film. Andersson's is a personal version of surrealism, with absurd things happening in mundane surroundings. One could compare his film with a collection of poems. This one has a motto from Goethe's Roman Elegies:
Therefore rejoice, oh thou living one, blest in thy love-lighted homestead
Ere the dark Lethe's sad wave wetteth thy fugitive foot
Andersson's observations are on the depressive side, yet permeated with humour. The audience laughed a lot, in the right places.