Better Go Mad in the Wild

Identical twins spending their entire lives with each other on a remote farm in the Bohemian Forest—it sounds like something out of a fairy tale. The two brothers used to share one room, but now a wall separates their living quarters. Sometimes they pass cigarettes to one another through a hole in the wall.

Franta and Ondra are hermits. They spend their days together, along with their chickens and cows. We see them squabbling, drinking, smoking joints, sleeping outside, chasing after their livestock, and arm wrestling. And in between they share their philosophy of life. The rhythmic scenes from their daily lives are interspersed with biographical details, voiced by a talking cow.

This is a documentary that resists categorization. The individual scenes are connected more by atmosphere and feeling than chronology or a fixed storyline. Dynamic editing and classical music reinforce the sense of playfulness that characterizes the brothers’ lives—a shared existence filled with “poems that are lived, not penned.”