The Cybernetic Grandma

The Cybernetic Grandma
Directed byJiří Trnka
Screenplay byJiri Trnka
Story byIvan Klima
Produced byJiri Vanek
Jaroslav Mozis
Erma Kminkova
CinematographyJiri Safar
Ivan Renc
Edited byHana Walachova
Helena Lebduskova (assistant uncredited)
Music byJan Novak
Production
companies
Loutkovy Film Praha
Kratky Film Praha
Distributed byUstredni Pujcovna Filmu
Release date
  • October 26, 1962 (1962-10-26)
Running time
29 minutes
LanguageCzech

The Cybernetic Grandma (Czech: Kybernetická babička) is a 1962 Czechoslovakian stop motion puppet cartoon. It is a surreal science fiction-horror animation film, showing a dystopian situation where machines tend humans into a cybernetic lifestyle. The story is seen through the eyes of a little child who is led by his grandmother to enter an underground world. There it witnesses many strange events and ends up being cared for by a cybernetic grandma looking like a hybrid between a robotic wheelchair and a giant moth. The film shows a contradiction between the kind and sweet way the machine talks to the child and its disturbingly cold insensitive behavior. The cybernetic grandma is portrayed by the mechanically accurate and formally perfect voice and language of Czech actress Otýlie Benšíková. At the end of the movie, the little child is rescued by its true biological grandma, who turns off the cybernetic one and takes care of it.