“Patrick, it's Hitler! Yes it is Hitler! Patrick, you must take a picture of me with him!”

– Shirley White, American time traveler

Filmed in Idaho for National Idaho Day (USA)

 

A disaster has struck the future world. A private one, Karen's sister has had an accident. And a global one, one so severe that a Government project is put in place. The Project, located in the #Idaho desert and in different points in time, transfers teenagers 56 years forward so to repopulate the to-be-wiped-out land. Then, without warning or reason, The Project shuts down and the kids strand into a deserted future.

“Esto Perpetua”

– Idaho state motto

Idaho Transfer is, even for early 70s standards, an odd affair. It carries the weight of its time – hippie optimism had died thanks to #Manson, US meddling in Vietnam, the impending #EcoCrisis (we knew, we always did…) – but there too was this optimism for the upcoming millennium. Everything was going to be fine, in The Future. We'll be wiser, no more wars, no more famine, technology will save us. Released just 4 months before the first Oil Shock, Fonda somehow transferred a glimpse of our future.

The global audience of #Mondo-Vision, a live broadcast #TimeTravel experiment, determines through their emotional investment in the lead's screened experience what the man's destination will be. Even so, the spectators' collective energy should serve as a powerhouse, enabling a televised leap into the future. The man whose faith determines it all is Terence Stamp – played by the actor with the same name. He agrees to partake in the hope that enough emotional energy can be harvested for him to travel back in time so he can reunite with his lost love.

 

While definitely taking a cue or two from Alain Resnais' Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968), Hu-Man has a much grimmer feel to it. The seventies were not a time of or even for optimism, including Stamp's career and personal life. Noun Serra's dizzying editing and the real-world danger both the in-movie actor and real-world actor are exposed to makes Hu-Man a much more self-referential and personal experience for this future's reality-fatigued viewer.