Alternate Best Actor 2017: Vladimir Brichta in Bingo: The King of the Mornings

Vladimir Brichta did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Augusto Mendes in Bingo: The King of the Mornings. 

Bingo King of the Mornings follows the unlikely trajectory of an aspiring actor, doing softcore pornos, becoming the star of a hit children’s clown tv show. 

Vladmir Brichta plays Augusto the actor where the film opens with almost a kind of Safdie brothers like intensity as we follow him to try to get out of his particularly humble beginnings. Brichta approaches the role with a fundamental truth behind Augusto as a man who is destined for greatness, or at least he believes him. Something we see as we open the film where he is spending time with his young son just before a porn shoot. Where Brichta plays the moment with his son, towards his less than appealing job, as a hype up moment where Brichta presents not as delusions of grandeur rather this self-motivation method to a certain kind of madness of someone insisting that he'll be big. Brichta undercuts it with just a glance here or there before the hype up, showing that at this point he’s not there, but with the conviction of a man who just knows he’ll be there somehow. Where we quickly see one opportunity through a tv show, and one success of this performance is Brichta’s ability to modulate his performance per the performances of the character of Augusto. Obviously the softcore doesn’t require much of him, but in the brief tv show appearance, Brichta reinvents his presence to this very specific type of actor, where he comes across well but in a very specific alternative charisma than what we will eventually get as Bingo. Brichta effectively portrays the potential of the man as a performer, something that naturally carries to Brichta’s own performance. 

Brichta’s charisma he delivers here is very much attached to the drive of the man where in his eyes you see that insistence that he can do anything. Something that comes into play when he decides to audition for the new children’s program Bingo instead of the tv show. Where Brichta brings this predatory quality even as he darts towards this chance at fame even if it seems ill-fitting to his previous jobs in showbusiness. The intensity he delivers as he very nearly bites into the idea of the children’s clown denotes the need to find a path to his own fame. Where we see Augusto make his impression by not playing into the clown trope and in fact using inappropriate language for a children’s show, unheard by the English speaking studio bigwig, to get people to have a bigger reaction. Brichta’s approach, where this is almost an uncurrent of insanity in the “sell” of his Bingo, works though in the way there is just so much energy in his delivery, a specific chaotic energy of someone rolling with the madcap punches more than anything. Something that naturally extends to when he’s dealing with the sometimes unruly children of his show, where Brichta combines a big smile with also an often hectoring edge, but with just the right blend that he never quite becomes unbelievable, even if he is a bit more hostile than you’d expect a children’s clown to be. 

Within the world comes his fame, which initially is something that Augusto thrives with where Brichta plays into that drive now also into a self-satisfied ego, to the point of insisting he’ll easily have sex with the religious show producer Lúcia (Leandra Leal). Brichta continues the chaos with that same energy effectively though now with a bit more of a pompous stride. An element that becomes less clear for him when it becomes obvious that he cannot reveal his identity therefore limiting his actual exposure. Leading Brichta’s performance to blend that previous intensity that he used for his performance to become now this tipping towards vexing frustration. Something that Brichta effectively builds in his performance, along with moments out of makeup where you see him stewing in it against other moments of fantasizing of being able to reveal himself or have unexpected success with sex with Lúcia, neither of which happen. Unfortunately this leads me to the elements of the film which were less successful for me. One being his relationship with his son, who I’m sorry but came off as a prop to me. Other than the opening scene, I thought he was just kind of there. The other also being his fame obsessed mom, something that I also thought needed to go further. Although I think Brichta is good in showing the quiet consideration of the otherwise very blunt man to his mom, along with later his unconsolable desperation when she dies later. But even that transition seems rushed there that it doesn’t overall have the impact it should even if Brichta is certainly giving it his all. Additionally the whole path of frustration, along with his relationship with Lúcia have a lot of potential but just feel repetitive in the actual execution. Hitting the same beats too many times, and while Brichta I think remains good, I’ll admit Augusto becomes less and less interesting in every repeated bit. Brichta portrays this growing mania about him, but it never builds towards anything that is cathartic as either a failure or success…though the film paints it as all success in the end. Something that happens but it wasn’t something I felt in any profound way in terms of the realization of it in terms of the writing or direction. Brichta I never feel fails in his task but there is a certain limitation of the result, particularly in terms of his personal growth where the postscript suggests far more than we get. I will say however the moment of Augusto finally getting to wipe off his makeup, even if the build to it isn’t perfect, Brichta’s performance in isolation is moving in creating that sense of relief at finally getting the recognition he was waiting for in just the modest way he approaches the moment in each second of the reveal that he does end on a high note even if I don’t feel everything comes together in terms of the writing of Augusto’s/Bingo’s personal journey.