Miro Remo Shows Hermit Twins in Doc ‘Better Go Mad in the Wild’

A hybrid, a drama, a fairy tale and a documentary – even Slovak director Miro Remo doesn’t know how to define Karlovy Vary Film Festival winner “Better Go Mad in the Wild.” And he doesn’t care. 

“It’s not important to me where this film fits formally. What matters is that it faithfully reflects the life of the twins,” he says. Remo picked up the coveted Grand Prix on Saturday.

His protagonists, twin brothers František and Ondřej Klišík, are living together far away from the rest of society. They are descendants of Slovaks from Romania, who settled in the Šumava region after World War II, in areas vacated by Germans. 

“Life wasn’t easy for them, but their parents taught them to value every person. Truth was always held in the highest place in their family,” says Remo, who “met” them while on vacation.

“My father recommended a great book by Aleš Palán, also called ‘Better to Go Mad in the Wilderness,’ which includes several powerful stories about the Šumava hermits. One of them was about Franta and Ondra. I contacted Aleš right away, and he brought me into their world.”

It’s a world full of fighting, arm-wrestling and poems that are “lived, not penned.” “There’s a lot of boring c–ts in the world,” state the brothers. But thankfully, they are not among them. 

“I fell in love with them and with their environment. I was fascinated by everything magical and enchantingly unusual,” Remo says.

“Compared with the film, the book offers more factual content. We needed to explain some things – for example, how Franta lost his hand – but we decided to only include minimal information.” 

Enter a talking cow, narrating the whole story. 

“We spent 60 days with the brothers over the course of five years, and I began to feel their animals were communicating with us as well. The biggest advantage was that anything was possible on that project. We only needed to overcome our fear of conventions.”

Remo conceived the entire thing as a “fairytale for adults.” Still, some parts of the twins’ lives felt tragic to him. 

“There are many stories about people struggling with alcohol, but their uniqueness lies elsewhere. They’ve evolved into an unusual form of existence with an extremely strong magical presence,” he says, which led him to move away from the confines of “classic and overused” social drama. 

“[This social component] is still a part of the story – for example in the form of alcohol abuse – but even that issue has two sides to it. In our fairytale, substances take a lot from you, but they also give back. This is the story of their life; one they chose freely. I fully respected it.”

As Remo became an observer of this “endless brotherly conflict” and their search for answers to the most burning questions, a friendship was forged. 

“We openly shared all our fears and desires. I told them it was important to me for their portrayals to be real, truthful and fearless, but also visually rich and deeply magical. They had no special requests – just one. They wanted to be able to leave the project at any moment.”

And yet they ended up staying, pondering the eternal dilemma. What’s more important: art or everyday life? 

“Franta and Ondra are real artists. None of us can compare. Franta says a poem is lived and not written. To which I would add: ‘Art is a cure for all the viruses of this world,’” says the director, who also appreciated the twins’ playfulness.  

“I guess I’m just a big kid myself,” he adds. 

“I also grew up in a family full of love and understanding, and I love to play and step outside of the norms. I understand why they chose this kind of life. The reality we all live in right now is no longer interesting: it’s too ordinary and demanding. It’s better to go mad somewhere in the wilderness.”

Produced by Remo and Tomáš Hrubý for Arsy-Versy, the film was co-produced by nutprodukce. Filmotor handles sales, while Aerofilms distributes in Czech Republic and Film Expanded in Slovakia.