“A poem is lived, not written” – “Better Go Crazy in the Wild” at the 2026 goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film5 min read
There is no space to hide between Franta and Ondra Klišík, the elderly twin brothers at the heart of Miro Rema’s 2025 documentary Better go crazy in the wild. We witness only the immediate experience and lived moments of their rural life, with all its ups and downs, arguments, expressions of love, discussions about life and death, and undoubtedly also the randomness guaranteed by the radical freedom of the brothers’ lifestyle.
Rema’s film follows a section of a 2018 book by a Czech journalist Aleš Palán, who interviewed several “hermits” living in Šumava National Park in Southwest Czechia: people living in isolation in arguably the wildest part of the country.
There are no actors in the movie: just the two brothers who have lived on the land their parents owned for decades, secluded and content, if not a bit grumpy with age and familial frustrations, and with a few scars on their hearts. They care for their field, animals, and a typical Czech “grandpa” cottage full of items like the kind of cups my grandparents would make me a tea in, an ornamental plastic tablecloth and a clothesline drawn from one corner of the house to the other.
It is no coincidence the film’s title indicates a bit of madness. The documentary carries the viewer away with a surreal narrator, the twins’ cow, ( voiced by a legendary Czech actor Jiří Lábus) and tranquil, almost fairytale-like cinematography even in moments of drama. In this way, Rema balances staged visuality with the brothers’ raw discussions about life and death, art, and nature.
What ties this together is the masterful camera work by Dušan Husár, who follows the brothers’ playfulness (and frequent exchanges of opinions) with an eye for picturesque symmetry and reflections, which are complemented by the vibrant landscape of Šumava National Park.
Between madness and reality
Ondra and Franta’s behaviour could easily be considered a bit odd to the viewer. But as they go through their rough daily life in the wilderness, all while using their colourful palette of Czech swearwords, the brothers carry a specific lightness of being. Their microworld manifests pure joy through dancing, singing, playing the accordion, spontaneous poetry, painting (and breaking) walls, drinking,smoking, and skinny dipping in the surrounding lakes.
The beauty of the film is complemented by the lyricism of Czech “national revival” composer Bedřich Smetana, namely The Moldau – an ode to the river-vein of the country which just happens to spring in Šumava. One could consider a slight disproportion between the rawness (and madness) of the twins and the weight this symphony carries – and yet Rema makes it work.
Another theme flowing through the entire documentary is the intimate knowledge of life’s fragility and expectancy of death, often translated through the brothers’ poetry:
Life is a moment’s illusion
A shout into darkness
A foolish effort
A cup forced upon you
A sip of pleasing taste
A precondition of death certain to us
A precondition of life.
Despite the slight madness flowing through the entire documentary, the film inspires questions: Who are we to tell what is mad and what not, if the world we are offered a glimpse of is so different from the one we live in? As the twins recite their poems with The Moldau playing in the background, who is freer than them? Their world is small, and yet they do not seem to be missing a thing.
There is wisdom in their lived experience, and it is no surprise their story caught the attention of many Czechs. Despite the (often self-declared) reputation as an “atheist country”, Czechs are turning to spirituality – and what better medium for this turn than a raw insight into life in the wilderness? With the number of people losing interest in the world’s rapid developments, wouldn’t we all want to go a little crazy in the wild?
The intersecting wild
Reality caught up with the film when just a day after it won the main award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in July 2025, Franta was found dead in a pond in a small village near Prague after spending an evening celebrating at a local pub. Reports say that he planned to travel after winning the award, so the death came unexpectedly. Czech commentators asked: if we were so shocked by Franta’s and Ondra’s life in the wild, couldn’t the exposure to the equally wild reality outside of it become a deadly shock?
Ultimately, the police declared Franta’s death an accident. Certainty is difficult to reach, and yet it is hard to assume the twins would be completely lost in “the outside,” despite their oddity. The film suggests they are well-read, informed, and opinionated about the world beyond Šumava. Franta makes this clear when he yells Slava Ukraini! to the wild, and when he rambles late at night:
“There’s many boring, cold-hearted fucks in the world, people, who don’t know what’s love, people who live for some ridiculous goals!”
Whatever the case, Franta’s death adds a touch of sad reality to the documentary. As he jokes about dying and the end of the film, Ondra bursts into tears at the end, not knowing how soon this “precondition on life” will come knocking on their door.
Better go crazy in the wild (2025) was screened as part of the 2026 goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film.
