Kybernetická babicka (1962)

... aka: Cyber Grandma

... aka: Cybernetic Grandmother, The

... aka: Die Oma vom anderen Stern (The Grandma from the Other World)

Directed by:

Jiří Trnka

They can speak like us. They can say all the right words and do all the right things. They can teach us everything we need to know. They probably make fewer mistakes. And they can claim to feel things and care about us and nurture us and pacify us and put on an impressive almost-human-like show of compassion and emotion. But can they actually fully replace us? This eerie sci-fi tale, which is as timely as ever despite being made over sixty years ago, theorizes that they indeed cannot. "They," in this case, being robots, cyborgs, androids, cyber-whatevers; machinery and computers programmed to replace human beings by duplicating what humans typically do in their day-to-day lives but also mimicking the assumed correct things humans should say. Despite being less prone to error, age, illness and the complexities of the human psyche, there isn't and likely will never be a suitable artificial replacement for family and friends of the human variety, says Trnka. After marveling at technology, taking advantage of it and playing with all of the cool new toys in a futuristic world, sometimes all you really need is a hug from your grandma.

At a small cottage, a grandmother and her beloved young granddaughter receive a message from the girl's absent mother delivered by a drone-like device. There's a lot to gouge about the coldness of technological advancement from this one brief message alone. The girl isn't referred to by name, even by her own mother. Instead, she's "the kid" and is given her new identification number, ACH028. And then there's the fact the mother automatically assumes the little girl must be bored staying with her old-fashioned and tech illiterate grandmother in her simple country cottage. After all, she prefers her quiet, simple life and doesn't even bother with all of the dazzling gadgets available to this advanced society. However, little does the mother know, her daughter is already perfectly content with her red ball and the affection she receives from her loving granny. Nonetheless, the message orders the girl be delivered to her new home.

The trip there is a journey through a graveyard of advancements past. A paved roadway is no longer used because cars are no longer used, TV sets, airplanes, weaponry and other commonly used things of the previous generations sit around covered in cobwebs. Once they arrive at their destination, the sad, scared girl is given her number, says goodbye to her grandma and is then whisked away to her new home, which may be somewhere in space for all we know. Just like any other product, she finds herself on a conveyor belt and is then placed in an egg-shaped glass pod that entertains her with machine-generated music as lights and other pods travel around a complex system where seemingly meaningless numbers, letters and symbols constantly flash. It's all impressive, yet cold, confusing, impersonal and sterile.

Finally arriving at her destination, the girl discovers her new home cavernous, quiet and deserted. Both of her astronaut parents are away; mom on some "geological expedition" and dad back on the moon. Left in their place to babysit is a robot (voiced by Otýlie Benísková) who's been programmed to behave just like a grandmother; even physically designed for that purpose to resemble a comforting chair with angel-like doily wings. "She" insists there's no reason to be scared, assures the girl it loves her, wants the girl to call it grandma and is equipped with all kinds of annoying old school phrases like like "A healthy mind is a healthy body!" and "Cleanliness is next to godliness!" When it comes time to scold ("Leaning out the window is strictly forbidden!"; "Sit straight!") it does so in the same artificially chipper tone. It coaxes her into a bathroom where robot arms do all of the cleaning for her and then sits her down for a bedtime story that involves murder and dismemberment. Needless to say, the girl is distrustful and horrified, but her story ends on a hopeful and heartwarming note.

This is another gem from influential Czech animator Trnka that I probably should have watched a lot sooner since I'd previously loved his allegorical short THE HAND (1965). His trademark combination of stop motion animation and puppetry is put to visually striking effect here, with unique, brilliant designs for this futuristic world, as well as an important message delivered in a concise and affecting way. Even more impressively, this is able to relay its exact intentions to the audience with surprisingly little dialogue, instead focusing on the visuals and sound design, with Jan Novák's varied score, alternately whimsical and disquieting / horrific, ably supporting the scenario.

Since we've already moved into an age where people are not only somewhat disconnected from nature and the outside world, but also somewhat disconnected from other human beings, what this has to say is even more relevant now than it was back in 1962. While the flesh-and-blood grandma may be slower and more feeble, she has the advantage of interpersonal wisdom and nuance gained through lived experience. Her genuine affection for her granddaughter is not something a computer can exactly or believably duplicate, just as the granddaughter is intuitively more receptive to love coming from an organic place that feels earned and authentic as opposed to a manufactured one.

★★★1/2

Almohadón de plumas (1988)

... aka: Feather Cushion

... aka: Feather Pillow

Directed by:

Ricardo Islas

This was made by the same fella who'd just done the ultra low-budget shot-on-video vampire film CROWLEY (1987). Since I already wrote a bit about him on that review, I'll give you the Cliffs Notes version here: Islas was a horror-movie-loving teenager living in Uruguay, a low population country (around 3 million when this was made) that didn't have much of a film industry to speak of. Still, he didn't let that stop him from making his own camcorder-shot features, which appear to have only been shown on TV in his home country. Islas churned out quite a few of these in the late 80s into the mid 90s (including a Crowley sequel) before relocating to the U.S., where he continues to make ultra low budget horror films to this day. This one is an adaptation of a short story (a very short one) of the same name by Horacio Quiroga, who's sometimes referred to as "The Edgar Allan Poe of Latin America" and was born in Uruguay but spent most of his professional career working in Argentina. El almohadón de plumas was first published back in 1917 in a collection of eighteen short stories from the author titled Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte ("Tales of Love, Madness and Death"). Though he's mostly unknown here in America, apparently his work is frequently praised in Spanish-speaking countries.

The cheap-looking title screen and opening wobbly shots around a curio shop looking at dolls, masks and the titular pillow set to synth music is oddly charming, but we're also immediately slapped right in the face that this is an amateur home movie. The camerawork is shaky, the videography is sometimes blurry, everything is blindingly bright in the day yet too dark at night and there's almost no attention whatsoever paid to making sure we can actually hear what the actors are saying in the first scene. As our protagonist is discussing some kind of construction deal with his colleague Antonio (Richard Perlas) the audio is muffled and voices are drowned out by passing cars. Cars can even sometimes be heard in some of the scenes taking place indoors and a faint hissing sound is present over most of the dialogue from relying on the camcorder's built-in mic.

The story centers around Jordan (played by the director) and Alicia (Norma Morgan), former college sweethearts who have just gotten married, yet sleep in separate bedrooms. He's so preoccupied with work that he usually brings it home with him and it seems like it's all he can ever talk about. She doesn't seem to have a career or much to do aside from sleeping a lot. Alicia has recently purchased a fancy red feather pillow with a curious, hand-painted design on it (a six-pointed star with an eyeball in the middle) that she seems to be pleased with.

Alicia starts getting headaches and passing out. A doctor is called in and recommends she change her diet. However, her issues continue and she starts getting even worse. Woken up by a noise, she thinks she sees a black-clad figure lurking around their home and follows it into the cellar, where a ping pong ball eyed woman with rotten teeth charges at her. After hearing his wife screaming, Jordan rushes down to the cellar to find her unconscious. Back to the doctors they go. This time they run some more tests and question whether she's on drugs, vomiting blood and / or suffering from "nasal or vaginal discharge" (?!) They finally come to the conclusion she's having hallucinations brought on from anemia and recommend she get more rest. No problem there. All this chick ever seems to do is lie around in bed! Nevertheless, Jordan has his sister Nancy (Beatriz Rossi) come stay with them to help around the house so Alicia has even less to do.

Further encounters with the mysterious lady follow, which leads to more screaming and more passing out, plus dramatic physical changes like dark under eye circles, paleness, rapid loss of weight, rapid loss of blood and small sores on her face that resemble bug bites. After the doctors assure Jordan there's nothing to worry about, Alicia suddenly passes away in her sleep, just five days after first becoming sick. The doctors complete their analysis postmortem and reveal that she had been drained of her blood by something of a parasitic nature.

Considering what medium was used to make this, the unavoidable pratfalls of using said medium and the fact very little money was spent here, this showcases enough care, talent and ambition to keep it enjoyable if you can tolerate zero budget videotaped horror. Though there are awkward, bland and / or technically inept moments sprinkled throughout, a surprising number of scenes are professionally staged, paced and edited, to the point where you sometimes actually forget about this being a home movie. It's almost as if scenes were (gasp!) planned out by the director in advance to the point he may have actually (double gasp!) storyboarded them. Faults and all, I genuinely appreciated the effort that went into this, especially when compared directly to most other SOV horrors from this same time period.

This is also one of those instances where I don't recommend reading the source material before seeing the movie. You can breeze through that in just a couple of minutes afterward like I did, but watching the movie version play out with no knowledge of what's going to happen offers up some surprises you won't be getting if you familiarize with it beforehand. The film does a pretty nice job respectfully staying faithful to the story while also elaborating upon it, especially adding an ambiguous element about the source of the pillow that sends it into faintly supernatural territory.

There are a number of other filmed versions of the same story. It was adapted by Mexican filmmaker Alicia Violante in 1990 (which appears to have been a student film), was the subject of Cuban and Chilean shorts in, respectively, 2000 and 2007, was an episode of the Argentinian TV series Fantasmagorias in 2018 and an episode of the Paraguayan TV series Relatos Clásicos de Misterio y Terror in 2020. There's also Japanese TV movie version from 2022 and it's been featured on several Spanish-language podcasts. To my knowledge, this particular version has never been given an official home video release, nor has it ever been released with English subtitles.

★★1/2