Giovanni Teodori from the Italian Film Festival della Lessinia on Better to Go Mad in the Wild

Two men, almost identical, are separated by a wall. In the wall, there is a small hole. One of them takes a drag from a joint, then they bring their mouths close to the hole, and the exhaled smoke from one ends up in the lungs of the other. Twins Franta and Ondra Klišík are over 60 years old; they live in the Šumava region, raise animals, drink, smoke weed, bicker, then make peace and embrace. They seem to have left behind most of the conventions that govern "normal" lives. For a few dozen minutes, Better to Go Mad in the Wild genuinely feels like the film promised by its title: the playful story of two wild eccentrics who chose the Czech countryside, nettle baths, and radical eccentricity as their life paradigms. Then Miro Remo, a Slovak director born in 1983 whose work is competing in the 32nd Film Festival della Lessinia, slowly begins to peel that initial impression away from the viewer.

First come their bodies, the house, the animals, the joints, the alcohol—the irregularity of two lives that seem to have rejected any form of external discipline. Then come the poems, and from them emanates a lucidity that shifts the framework of what we are witnessing: verses capable of revealing within these eccentric existences two souls that give voice to universal poetic questions about love and the meaning of our lives. Shortly after, the picture becomes even more fascinating and complex as a past of political activism and engagement emerges: dissidence against the communist totalitarian regime, samizdat, and public recognition for their activism and the risks they took. In another scene, one of them shouts "Sláva Ukrajině!!!" Their retreat does not coincide with indifference toward the world, nor with a total exit from it.

This was precisely the path Remo wanted to trace: “In the beginning, it seems like a humorous and odd story about two wild twins living in the woods. Then deeper layers of existence emerge; I wanted the audience to move from initial fascination to discovering their inner world and the immense humanity hidden within them.”

When I ask him whether that life in Šumava can be read as a continuation of their past rebellion, the director has no doubts: “They are absolute rebels. Their existence is a direct rejection of social pressure.”

Yet Better to Go Mad in the Wild is too subtle a work to turn the two into secular saints of non-conformism. The freedom they choose comes at a price. Their bodies are weathered, worn, older than their years. Inside the shell, however, two young boys continue to dwell. It is one of the most beautiful tensions in the film: the matter gives way, but the desire does not.

There is a scene featuring an inner dialogue in front of a mirror where age is confronted without indulgence. The body is that of someone who knows he can no longer rely on the charm of youth, yet the desire for the opposite sex continues to assert its right to exist. Remo recognizes this contrast as one of the core foundation stones of the film: “Their bodies grow weaker and older, but inside they still carry the energy, humor, and emotions of two young boys. They have never stopped dreaming and desiring.”

I find this vitality at once heroic and desperate. There is a certain melancholy, which stems in part from what never happened in their lives: the women who are no longer there, lost opportunities, the roads closed off by every choice made.

For this reason, I read the burning snowman that does not melt as a metaphor for a stubborn youth: something burns, gets consumed, and yet does not yield. It is my interpretation, and the director responds: “I prefer to create magical and poetic imagery while leaving the audience the freedom to feel and interpret it.” And perhaps it is here that the “fairytale” mentioned by the director during the Q&A with the audience takes shape most clearly. Better to Go Mad in the Wild suspends pure realism, transforming Šumava into a mental space as much as a geographic one, offering us images free of a single, rigid meaning. But it is not a simplistic tale about the sweet life of those who abandon civilization: “I didn't want to make a naive fairytale about living in nature. Their life is tough, isolated, and full of daily conflicts.”

The escape from social pressure and conventions has not only yielded freedom and authenticity, but also solitude, hardship, and sacrifice. Thus, the film does not frame their retreat in terms of victory versus defeat. It frames it as a choice. And every choice, in my view, carries both what is gained and what is lost.

Yet perhaps the most radical of their choices is continuing to live together. For much of the film, it is surprisingly difficult to tell the two brothers apart when the camera does not show the amputation on Franta's forearm. Remo tells me that in the editing room, they intentionally worked to create this uncertainty, deciding moment by moment when the audience would be able to distinguish one from the other. “On the surface they look almost identical, but inside they are two very different human beings: one seeks absolute freedom, the other needs routine and stability.”

And so, returning to the radicalism of brotherhood, we first see two bodies and two faces that are almost interchangeable, and then we learn from the film that nothing is less interchangeable than two human beings. The two share a face and much of their biography, yet they inhabit desire and freedom differently. And nevertheless, neither of them can truly imagine himself without the other. There may be temporary distance (the wall), annoyance, incompatibility. The two bicker—and a lot. They exasperate each other. They contradict each other. Yet conflict never becomes a final condemnation of the other; it is not eliminated, it is endured and moved through. And it is here that this work definitively stops being a film about two eccentric oddballs and becomes a film about love. Remo tells me this without hesitation: “My primary interest was the love between them. To me, they were like a married couple who have lived together from birth to their sixties. They fight and shout at each other, but their bond remains indestructible.”
 

When I ask him about the passage where the two talk about Hitler and Putin as men incapable of love, contrasting them with themselves as “children of love,” the conversation expands further: “My film is about love, empathy, and mutual understanding. Both brothers show us what truly makes us human: the capacity to love and do good beyond one's personal interest.”

Their freedom, then, does not equal solitude; rather, it is built within a bond strong enough to withstand conflict. They have withdrawn from many of society's rules, but they have never withdrawn from each other. Yet in counterpoint, this bond that protects them and allows them to live as they wish also becomes “a new trap in which they remain enclosed together.”

It is the film's most beautiful paradox: the very bond that makes freedom possible is also the one that limits it. The refuge can become a prison, without ever ceasing to be a refuge.

Two brothers, a wall between them, a small open passage connecting them, an exceptional relationship—two people who have shared an entire lifetime together, hour by hour, day by day. In its singularity, this relationship taught me something about brotherhood: a bond we do not choose, from which we can step away or rebel against, but which continues to define a vital part of our identity.

In the end, perhaps, the madness of Better to Go Mad in the Wild has shifted its meaning: no longer the simple eccentricity of two men I thought I saw at the beginning, but the radicalism with which they chose to live, love, and stay true to themselves.

Author: Giovanni Teodori
Source link: Lessinia Film festival