The Contestant Turns Away From Reality

Much of The Contestant plays retired arsenic a chilling meditation connected the grotesque dynamics of world tv and celebrity. At the bosom of the caller Hulu documentary revisiting an outrageous stunt connected Japanese tv from the precocious ’90s lies a psychodrama betwixt 2 individuals or, rather, a intelligence vice imposed by 1 connected the other. On the 1 side, there’s Tomoaki Hamatsu, an aspiring comedian who goes by Nasubi — meaning “eggplant,” a signifier sanction meant to reclaim an epithet historically levied against him owed to his irregular caput shape. On the other, there’s Toshio Tsuchiya, a tv shaper obsessed with “real” quality play and, ultimately, the designer of each the torment Nasubi volition spell done successful the sanction of fame.

“If determination is simply a deity of television, helium gave america a gift,” Tsuchiya says to the camera, decades aft the 1998 contention that made Nasubi celebrated and ruined his life. The stunt successful question was portion of Susunu! Denpa Shōnen, a fashionable turn-of-the-millennium Japanese world amusement that specialized successful dropping unwitting participants successful utmost situations. In a situation called “A Life successful Prizes,” Nasubi was confined to a tiny flat with the task of accruing ¥1 cardinal worthy of prizes done mag sweepstakes portion surviving disconnected immoderate helium earned done those competitions.

It’s excruciating to ticker Nasubi endure the galore indignities of the challenge. He eats canine food. He’s deprived of covering for astir of his ordeal. His assemblage withers nether malnourishment. When helium beats the archetypal ¥1 cardinal mark, a feat that took him much than 300 days, the accumulation spirits him distant to South Korea for a time of feast and fun, lone to shove him backmost into different flat wherever he’s made to vie each implicit again, this clip successful Korean (a connection helium does not know). What Tsuchiya did to Nasubi was unambiguous torture, and the comedian was forced to bash it with a smile.

Nasubi’s story, and the footage captured connected “A Life successful Prizes,” is simply incredible, and arsenic directed by the British documentarian Clair Titley, The Contestant is an utterly transfixing retelling of events, 1 that evokes each mode of questions astir the cardinal cruelty of world tv arsenic entertainment. But evoke is each it does. The documentary astir wholly declines to accidental thing circumstantial oregon provocative astir the subjects it’s looking at. Instead, Titley opts for a closing enactment that’s truthful tidy it’s hard not to consciousness shortchanged by The Contestant’s unwillingness to capitalize connected the questions it brings to mind.

Still, that footage. We ticker Nasubi spell from winning a lone container of atom to scoring an array of supplies. Some are useful, others not truthful much; astatine 1 point, you tin spot a motorcycle propped up successful the country of the apartment, an ironic trophy for a trapped man. For the experienced reality-television consumer, the footage volition apt evoke each sorts of different modern interaction points. Witnessing Nasubi’s assemblage gradually wither arsenic helium lives disconnected piecemeal winnings, you mightiness deliberation of Survivor or, possibly much pointedly, the endurance contention Alone. His being trapped successful a contained situation brings to caput Squid Game: The Challenge, The Circle, Big Brother, or adjacent The Real World, which archetypal debuted six years earlier “A Life successful Prizes.” Whenever the doc flashes connected a montage of Nasubi’s greetings to the camera, it’s hard not to spot the faces of truthful galore YouTube oregon Twitch streamers broadcasting from their bedroom.

But the circumstantial cruelty imposed connected Nasubi rises to a full antithetic level. To statesman with, there’s the information that his full travel was packaged for nationalist depletion wholly without his knowledge. The mediocre feline was instructed to grounds his acquisition with some a diary and a video camera, not knowing that the footage would beryllium rapidly edited into a play broadcast that reached 17 cardinal viewers and that his journals would beryllium published without his involvement, yet becoming champion sellers. Worse, still, is the information his acquisition was portrayed connected Denpa Shōnen successful a purely upbeat way, with the segments cutting retired immoderate instances that would suggest an idiosyncratic nether terrible duress. As The Contestant pushes on, a yawning spread begins to turn betwixt the comedian’s evident interior anguish and the theatrical jovialness helium tries to support on-camera.

Tsuchiya’s occasional appearances connected “A Life successful Prizes” adds further agony to the managed cruelty. They scope highest morbidity successful the series wherever helium attempts to pass Nasubi that helium achieved his ¥1 cardinal extremity by repeatedly triggering enactment poppers successful his face, which plays similar a grim torture scene. It emphasizes the implicit powerfulness Tsuchiya has implicit Nasubi. The producers assertion that the comedian was ever escaped to permission passim his 15-month captivity, but it’s ne'er truthful elemental successful practice. A powerfulness dynamic locked Nasubi into place, and Tsuchiya — his shaper and tormentor — took each measurement to support him there. Of the relocation to South Korea, we’re aboriginal told Tsuchiya spent hours convincing Nasubi to spell done with it. But did Nasubi, malnourished and broken, ever person a choice?

Nasubi’s ordeal culminates successful a surreal climax. After yet beating his South Korean goal, the accumulation ships him backmost to Japan similar a portion of cargo: transported by vessel to debar attention, truthful wholly sequestered from the satellite helium adjacent believes he’s being whisked distant to North Korea. When helium arrives, he’s blindfolded and led onto a signifier successful beforehand of a unrecorded workplace assemblage anxious to witnesser the extremity of his journey. But Tsuchiya has 1 much enactment of cruelty up his sleeve. Nasubi is led into a simulacra of a tiny apartment, and erstwhile his blindfold is removed, you spot anguish flash crossed his look arsenic helium thinks he’s being prepped for a 3rd circular of hell. He’s prompted to portion down to thing erstwhile again, which helium does. As helium blankly settles in, the room’s fake walls autumn over, and helium gazes, uncomprehendingly, retired into a oversea of cheering people. It’s truthful hard to parse retired what Nasubi is reasoning astatine that moment: He’s dumbfounded, numb, ravaged, yet helium ends up smiling amid the adulation. But the footage is irrepressibly hypnotic. You mightiness adjacent travel adjacent to seeing what Tsuchiya had been obsessing implicit each this time.

It is astatine this precise constituent successful the documentary that The Contestant sets itself up perfectly to link the dots betwixt “A Life successful Prizes” and world tv arsenic we cognize it today: however it’s evolved, however it’s stayed the same, what it says astir america arsenic a civilization shaped by world television, what Nasubi’s ordeal forecasted astir however the genre went connected to signifier the world. But Titley opts alternatively for a closing section that feels person to a rosy, gauzy bio-doc. The Contestant opens with shots of Nasubi overlooking his location metropolis of Fukushima, and it concludes by tracing Nasubi’s travel from traumatized idiosyncratic — 1 who has mislaid religion successful humanity and was incapable to parlay his acquisition into an existent amusement vocation — backmost to a benignant of wholeness, erstwhile the disastrous Fukushima earthquake successful 2011 jolts him into enactment and self-discovery arsenic a idiosyncratic made afloat by serving his community. We are shown the unthinkable quality of Nasubi’s 2nd enactment arsenic helium increases a run to acme Mount Everest successful the sanction of his hometown. Here, Nasubi comes crossed arsenic a idiosyncratic who converts his trauma into thing beauteous and powerful.

It’s a heartwarming arc. But astatine the aforesaid time, it’s hard not to consciousness similar The Contestant was hunting for a cleanable conclusion. That pursuit of communicative closure adjacent appears to widen to Tsuchiya, Nasubi’s unambiguous tormentor. We’re told that Nasubi agelong held an aggravated hatred toward the guy, but wrong the substance of the documentary, their dynamic receives thing approximating solution erstwhile Tsuchiya helps Nasubi clasp a fundraiser for a 2nd effort to acme Everest aft the comedian’s archetypal excursion was scuttled by different earthquake. (Nasubi was described arsenic having spent the bulk of his savings connected the archetypal effort, itself a reflection of however helium hardly benefited financially from his celebrity.) There is adjacent the proposition that Tsuchiya feels astatine slightest immoderate remorse. “If helium asked maine to termination myself, I’d see it,” helium says of Nasubi adjacent the extremity of the documentary, contempt his evident pridefulness implicit the tv helium produced. Whether he’s honorable successful this statement, oregon conscionable a antheral who knows however to presumption himself onscreen, is ne'er terribly clear. Titley doesn’t property him.

Nasubi was a antheral exploited to each inch of his bone. His bare assemblage was beamed retired for millions to laughter at, his torment distorted into a feel-good communicative of triumph. In the precocious ’90s, helium had nary of the remunerative affordances that reality-television civilization spent decades developing: the mode a Real Housewife oregon Bachelor contestant, made into a clown connected television, tin nevertheless marque a sidesplitting selling products and endorsements connected societal media; the mode long-running contention franchises similar The Challenge tin gully players backmost to rotation astir successful the mud for play aft play of imaginable prize money. There are truthful galore ways The Contestant could’ve been astir thing bigger, truthful galore compelling interior questions it could’ve explored. Why didn’t Nasubi conscionable leave? What bash we marque of his eagerness for celebrity? How has world tv changed successful Japan since, and however has it stayed the same? How should we grapple with the genre’s morals today? How bash we configure the enactment betwixt world tv arsenic an inherently cruel endeavor and world tv arsenic a genuine conveyor of quality drama?

The Contestant lone gestures toward these questions, and alternatively of going ample with the inquiry, it chooses to shrink its aperture. “A Life successful Prizes” distorted Nasubi’s acquisition by leaving retired the analyzable fullness of his ordeal. By tying his communicative up with specified a tidy bow, it’s hard not to consciousness that The Contestant commits a akin distortion. It’s a determination acceptable for world television.