The fantastic story of a miner who, using alternative energy sources, builds a power station that supplies electricity to the whole world and makes it depend on him, has entirely contemporary references. As a fable about energy and the machine age, Algol is also a fabulous legend with science fiction traits. The early sequences juxtapose the working class and the bourgeoisie, alternating fantastic elements and documentary sequences. The film is one of the first depictions of a Germany increasingly divided between exploiters and exploited.