"I have always wanted to make people laugh. But there is a difference between making people laugh and being laughed at."
This is what Nasubi, a Japanese actor and comedian, tells viewers in a new documentary about the 15 months he spent naked in isolation, entering magazine sweepstakes to earn food. His ordeal, lasting from January 1998-April 1999, was broadcast to millions of people for the nascent and massively popular Japanese reality show, "Susunu! Denpa Shonen.”
Clair Titley's "The Contestant," which saw its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023, was released on Hulu on May 2. The documentary traces more than a year in the life of the 22-year-old Tomoaki Hamatsu, better known as Nasubi as he left his home in rural Fukushima to pursue a career in entertainment in Tokyo, where he subsequently entered a segment of "Denpa Shonen" called "A Life in Prizes."
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"A Life in Prizes" is something of a predecessor to "The Truman Show" starring Jim Carrey, which was not released until later that year. "The Contestant" draws on archival footage of what audiences saw in real time, week to week: an unclothed, starving Nasubi's every movement captured on camera, which he was told would only potentially be aired once the challenge had concluded. The documentary also features exclusive interviews with Nasubi, his mother and sister, and Toshio Tsuchiya, the producer of “Susunu! Denpa Shonen" and the mastermind behind the game's deeply unsettling and strange premise.
Here are the most unbelievable moments from "The Contestant":
“Being alienated from human contact for this long makes you absolutely long for human warmth," Nasubi says, acknowledging that he eventually began to feel "robbed of his spirit."
We see clips of him dancing giddily and making silly faces in ostensibly high spirits; however, as Nasubi recounts his experience, it was simply evidence of a steadily unfurling mind, asserting that "being driven to the edge brought out a madness in me."
Nasubi's loneliness and emotional turmoil was compounded by the fact that Tsuchiya forbade members of the crew from ever interacting with him. Though the door to his room was never locked, Nasubi shares that over time, he lost the will to escape. "Psychologically you feel that rather than escaping or doing something radical, staying put, not causing trouble is the safest option," he says. "It’s a strange psychological state."
"The Contestant" is streaming on Hulu.
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"The Contestant": The 9 wildest moments from Hulu's documentary about Japan's extreme reality show
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08.05.2024
"I have always wanted to make people laugh. But there is a difference between making people laugh and being laughed at."
This is what Nasubi, a Japanese actor and comedian, tells viewers in a new documentary about the 15 months he spent naked in isolation, entering magazine sweepstakes to earn food. His ordeal, lasting from January 1998-April 1999, was broadcast to millions of people for the nascent and massively popular Japanese reality show, "Susunu! Denpa Shonen.”
Clair Titley's "The Contestant," which saw its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023, was released on Hulu on May 2. The documentary........
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