Bingo

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with a brief, live-action video sequence of the Neo-Futurists performing part of Disregard This Play before a live audience. A man in a strange hat greets a man sitting in a chair and addresses him as "Bingo". When the man in the chair denies being named Bingo, the man in the hat insists that he is, in fact, "Bingo the Clown-o". As the man in the chair tries to correct him, the man in the hat continues to address him as Bingo at greater and greater volume, ending with a loud shout and cutting off the protests.
After a fade to black, the same basic scene begins to play out again, this time with computer-animated characters. A man, "Dave," is sitting in a chair under a spotlight and surrounded by darkness. A clown enters, smoking a cigarette, and addresses Dave as "Bingo." Dave starts to protest that he's not "Bingo the Clown," but the clown ignores him and repeats the phrases "Hi, Bingo!" and "Bingo the Clown!" With each repetition, the clown's voice gets louder and he grows physically larger until he is screaming at Dave with a head larger than Dave's entire body.
A female harlequin enters, calling for "Music, please!" As she exits, the stage is illuminated and an instrumental version of the song "Daisy Bell" (Daisy, Daisy) begins to play. Strange screens rise up from under the floor and begin displaying a series of seemingly random images interspersed with pictures of clowns and the words "Hi Bingo!" At the same time, the clown begins riding a bicycle in circles around Dave while balancing a piano on one hand, and Dave is bombarded with peanuts.
The harlequin descends from the ceiling and orders the music to stop. As she exits, the music stops and the lights dim, leaving Dave alone in a spotlight once again. A little girl clown enters, holding a balloon that keeps bursting and re-inflating in new colors. She addresses Dave as "Bingo" and warns him that "he" is coming to "check on your progress." When Dave asks if Bingo is the one who is coming, the balloon girl's face transforms into a gigantic, snake-like monster and she shouts that Dave is Bingo. She then turns immediately back into a little girl to inform Dave that "he" is coming. The first clown walks through the spotlight, still carrying the piano in one hand, and drops his bicycle beside Dave's chair before leaving.
The balloon girl calls Dave "Bingo" again, and when he tries to protest, he is interrupted by the harlequin shouting "Music, please!" again. The music begins playing again, and the screens also reappear, but are soon replaced by enormous, robotic faces. The balloon girl drifts away on a giant balloon, and a human-sized flea walks past with a sign announcing "The Money Guy." The harlequin returns briefly and orders the music to stop before disappearing.
When the music stops, there is a strange creature with no legs, many arms, a man's head, and dollar bills sprouting from its neck and arms. It yells at Dave for "looking at my money," but then offers to let Dave look at his money. Confused and frightened, Dave declares that yes, he would like to look at the creature's money. The creature congratulates him for being a "good, little Bingo." Dave says that he doesn't think that he's Bingo, asking "who am I?"
The harlequin once again calls for music. This time, the lighting does not change, but the money creature is wheeled away as music plays and then fades out. Left alone, Dave says that maybe his is "Bingo" after all. The clown reappears, sitting in an easy chair, wearing glasses, with an axe embedded in his head. The clown asks Dave to confirm that he is "Bingo the Clown." Dave agrees, stating enthusiastically that he is "Bingo, Bingo the Clown-o!" He stands up and starts dancing around while shaking a baby's rattle.
The lights come on, fully illuminating the room, and a voice on a loudspeaker says "Thank you. Next." The screen cuts to black, and the credits begin.

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
Surrealistic computer-generated short is an animated wonder.. "Bingo" is the latest entry in the arena of increasingly complex and lifelike computer-generated animations. Chris Landreth sought a subject for a short that would aid in the development of Maya, an animation software package by Alias/Wavefront. He found inspiration in the Chicago-based theater group "The Neo-Futurists" who for years have performed an ever-changing series of 30 plays in 60 minutes called "Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind." Greg Kotis's play "Disregard This Play," in which a man is psychologically brutalized into believing he is a clown named Bingo, became the basis for Landreth's animation.Bingo expands on the original short skit (a filmed portion of which we see at the beginning) by allowing the innate surrealism of the psychological battering to take on realistic imagery. The bizarre nature of the admittedly thin plot will not appeal to everyone. Several people I know simply raised their eyebrows and looked blankly at me when I asked them how they liked it. But all were impressed by the sheer technical prowess of the animation. Facial gestures, human musculature, lighting and shadows, smoke and haze effects are all astoundingly realistic. And Bingo shows why computer animators strive to create incredibly realistic human characters; not to become replacements for human actors, but to give us believable animated characters that can transform into these strange and surrealistic visions.. Scary stuff. "Bingo" is an award-winning Canadian 5-minute short film from almost 20 years ago and this is based on Greg Kotis' play and the director is Chris Landreth. He made this film before his Oscar win for "Ryan", but was also an Academy Award nominee for another work at this point. Many people find clowns scary and I cannot say I am a great fan either and this film completely focuses on how clowns are scary and not funny. We see a seemingly normal man, who sits in a circus and all kinds of circus creatures (including an Abby Sciuto look-alike) turn him in a weird brain-washing manner into some kind of character who loses his mind and becomes the clown they want him to becomes. I thought the animation is good and the story succeeds through its strangeness and awkwardness. Landreth was in his mid-30s when he made this little animated movie and it's a success. I recommend checking it out and I actually like it more than "Ryan".