The Contestant is a documentary about a 1998 Japanese reality show starring Nasubi(real name Tomoaki Hamatsu) who was confined to a studio apartment and lived off magazine giveaways for 15 months.
Through contemporary interviews, footage from the show, and archival news clips Nasubi's story is told. Its interesting and bizarre and certainly a telling precursor to the cavalcade of reality TV to come. But it plays more like a summary of the show and neither Nasubi himself or the shows creator/producer Toshio Tsuchiya are able to offer much in the way of insight about the experience other than it was traumatic. No one is really held responsible, there is no comment about Japanese culture(or humanity at large), no analysis about reality TV as a genre, most of the questions the story itself raises are left unanswered.
Entertaining and pretty cringe but mostly devoid of why. The movie simply states "this happened" which is fine, its a weird enough story to hold attention, but it reaches and fails to grasp any real meaning. The third act attempts to place the experience as motivation for Nasubi later in life but it feels contrived.
Intriguing but incomplete.
Currently streaming on Hulu.
Rent It.
No comments:
Post a Comment