The Contestant is a deeply angering but safe re-telling of a harrowing programme in Japanese television.
Writer & Director: Clair Titley
Genre: Documentary, Biographical
Run Time: 90′
U.S. Release: May 2, 2024 on Hulu and digital platforms
U.K. Release: November 27-29, 2024 in cinemas
Given the popularity of reality TV and the widespread use of social media, it would appear that Peter Weir’s The Truman Show was a highly unsuccessful warning about the dangers of forgoing one’s privacy. But unbeknownst to many, an even more harrowing version of The Truman Show was taking place on the segment Prize Life, in the Japanese programme Susunu! Denpa Shōnen, on the same year of the movie’s release.
Its victim, Tomoaki Hamatsu (well-known in Japan as a comedian under the moniker Nasubi), was left to his own devices in a small, nondescript room, and had to win ¥1 million (roughly $8,000) in mail-in sweepstakes for his torment to end. His horrific circumstances are documented once more in Clair Titley’s documentary The Contestant, albeit in much more sympathetic ways.
Though he technically had the ability to leave at any moment (the door to his room was unlocked), Nasubi gradually felt beholden to the format of this programme and what it required of him. But, crucially, he knew next to nothing of what was being asked of him. For one thing, not only were his actions being filmed all day and night; they were being broadcast regularly on Japanese television, unbeknownst to Nasubi. This segment was hugely popular at the time, accruing up to 17 million viewers in its weekly broadcasts.
The Contestant, which covers this time in Nasubi’s life, is as angering and heart-breaking as this traumatic incident requires. Interviews with Nasubi, his loved ones, and Susunu! Denpa Shōnen producer Toshio Tsuchiya are interspersed with archival footage from the series documenting Narubi’s torturous environment. One very telling moment about the cultural climate around such programmes occurs when Nasubi’s sister says that the show is something that an ordinary person would find funny, but that it isn’t nearly so entertaining when you’re watching your loved one experience intense suffering and degradation on television. It’s easy to sympathise with her pain, but she’s wrong on this front: there’s nothing humourous about this programme. It is consistently horrifying.
Nasubi was undoubtedly naive, and far too eager to please for his own good — sometimes to maddening extremes — but it is impossible not to spend this entire documentary pitying him greatly. While The Contestant lacks visual flair, the events it depicts are so fascinating that it (mostly) doesn’t need it. Watching Nasubi’s suffering is intense enough in its own right, especially given the gleeful way this segment is discussed by the show’s presenters, or the delighted live audience that giggles at just about every fresh humiliation levelled at this poor man.
More angering still is the presentation of the footage itself, with canned laughter and silly sound effects crafting a very unique kind of horror film, underpinned by the fact that the greatest humiliation of all — that this is being watched and enjoyed by millions — is unknown to Nasubi.
Tsuchiya isn’t all that dissimilar to Christof (Ed Harris), the antagonist of The Truman Show who manages the giant film set that the movie’s eponymous protagonist has lived in all his life. Both of these cruel figures recognise that they are deeply obsessed with the men they inflict this suffering on. The real-life producer is more self-aware, rejecting the idea that he served as a kind of god in Nasubi’s life during this time, instead opining that he was more like the devil. Yet despite this recognition of his awfulness, he doesn’t seem to have much remorse. Some of his actions might hint at this, but the documentary doesn’t dig deep enough into the sadistic producer’s psyche.
Perhaps Tsuchiya himself doesn’t know how he feels; he refers to his old self as ‘crazy’ many a time. But is this just a cover? The Contestant is brilliant at introducing conversations centred around free will and the desire to look beyond the masks people wear in their daily lives, but it fails to expand on these themes. For as intriguing as this documentary is in hinting at this dark underbelly of content creation at the expense of great suffering, it still feels like there’s far more lurking beneath its surface that requires unpacking. This is where The Contestant’s straightforward approach to its subject matter falls short, as more impressionistic or creative choices could have made the experience more absorbing.
Even still, Titley’s documentary has so much real material to showcase that viewers will often be far too focused on the real-life madness unfurling before their eyes to wish that the film had possessed loftier goals. Nasubi and Tsuchiya are fascinating, both in their behaviour on the depraved programme and in their retrospective interviews. But the most memorable aspect of The Contestant is easily the goings-on in Prize Life, and worse still, the dark moments that were ignored in this segment because they would only have depressed viewers. Although it is by no means an easy watch, this documentary is a fascinating time capsule into a craze that is as confounding as it is angering.
The Contestant is now available to watch on Hulu and on VOD in the US. In the UK, the film will be released by MetFilmDistribution, with previews from November 27, 2024 and a nationwide release in cinemas on November 29.
