ACCUMULATOR 1: Czech Fantasy—Neither Fantasy Nor Sci-Fi

Only a director as unique as Jan Svěrák can take such a surreal approach to fantasy. From the emerging media globalization in post-communist countries, he managed to construct a sociologically relevant story for the 2020s—several decades after the release of Accumulator 1. What’s more, he skillfully intertwined the plot about energy being drained from people with a critical reflection on the life struggles of young individuals trying to build their personal lives in a world of contradictions, lies, secret dealings, instability, and charlatanry. And all of this is shot and edited in a distinctive way, unafraid of special effects and bold, by today’s standards, scenes of nudity. The Czechs make no apologies for blending fantasy with science fiction, nor for presenting cultural taboos, deliberately breaking sacred symbols in the process.

The plot of Accumulator 1 is based on an ancient idea found in culture, literature, and later in cinema: the belief that beyond the sensory world, there exists another realm that humans cannot directly access, yet one that can physically influence empirical reality—just as Earth’s gravity affects everything within its atmosphere. For Jan Svěrák, in Accumulator 1, this alternative space exists inside the television. There, alternate versions of ourselves live, requiring life energy drained from their “accumulators”—the human hosts who spend days, months, and years in front of TV screens. The only way to protect oneself from this media vampirism is to turn off the television and detach from the fictional world of information broadcast by the media. Because no matter the political system, media will always be ideologized in some way, providing a ready-made interpretation of the world. Over time, this leads to the gradual loss of individual identity. Svěrák, more or less accurately, assumed that objective truth does not exist in television. It can only be found through direct contact with reality—without intermediaries, especially synthetic ones. The energy is within us; we just need to open ourselves to it. This perspective is both eco-conscious, surreal, and somewhat reductionist.

However, the metaphor presented in Accumulator 1 remains highly relevant today—not because television constantly feeds audiences lies, but because, in general, new entities have emerged in society that replace real human interaction. This could be the beginning of a long-term transformation—society naturally evolving alongside technological progress into a multi-form, intelligent socio-technocratic entity. None of us—neither critics of TV and smartphones nor supporters of such activities—can predict the outcome. But we can cautiously assume that if such changes are happening, they are, in some way, natural, and after an initial phase of contradictions, humanity will adapt and redefine itself within the omnipresent information exchange technology.

The film’s protagonist, Olda (Petr Forman), is at the beginning of this journey when he discovers that televisions are mysteriously draining his energy. Someone is extracting it from him, yet all he wants is to live a normal life, work, and most importantly—love. The problem is that those on the other side of the TV screen want the same thing. They need that same energy—without it, they will die. The dilemma seems unsolvable: someone must lose, and therefore, someone must perish. The only question is whether it will be the person in front of the screen or the one behind it. Because there’s no doubt—they are all human. This is the essence of social or systemic totality—people fighting against people. Even if the “good side” eventually wins, it will always come at the cost of casualties who may not necessarily be guilty. Jan Svěrák appears to weave this metaphor using highly abstract means.

So, prepare for a distinctive narrative, with the director himself making a cameo as a “natural medicine” specialist. The protagonist will often flee from the blue beams emanating from TV screens, modify his remote control to function like a gun, and, in the strange world behind the glass screen, you’ll witness echoes of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari—where everything, like in a distorted mirror, seems irreparably tainted. As usual, the Czechs have managed to create a comedy infused with elements of broad fantasy that isn’t afraid to be melancholic, thought-provoking, and memorable—whether through bizarre scenes featuring a Snow White stripped down to her stockings or snails astonished that someone managed to avoid crushing them on a bumpy road. Yet, despite these peculiar moments, the director never loses control of the central metaphor: the battle between two worlds—the personal one, where we discover truth on our own, and the external one, which presents us with its interpretation and forces us to accept it uncritically. How do we navigate this conflict? Perhaps the best answer is to trust ourselves rather than any golden idols.