A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)

Director:

Peter Greenaway

Writer:

Peter Greenaway (written by)

Release Date:

25 May 1990 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Oliver Deuce, a successful doctor, is shattered when his wife is killed in a freak car accident involving...

Plot Keywords:

Fired | Symmetry | Bizarre | Alligator | Dog

Cast

Andréa Ferréol	...	Alba Bewick
Brian Deacon	...	Oswald Deuce
Eric Deacon	...	Oliver Deuce
Frances Barber	...	Venus de Milo
Joss Ackland	...	Van Hoyten
Jim Davidson	...	Joshua Plate
Agnès Brulet	...	Beta Bewick
Guusje van Tilborgh	...	Caterina Bolnes
Gerard Thoolen	...	Van Meegeren
Ken Campbell	...	Stephen Pipe
Wolf Kahler	...	Felipe Arc-en-Ciel
Geoffrey Palmer	...	Fallast
David Attenborough	...	Documentary Narrator (voice)

Also Known As:

A Zoo: A Zed & Two Noughts

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

UK | Netherlands

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:11 | UK:15 | Spain:T | Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Rotterdam Zoo, Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands

Company:

Allarts Enterprises

Trivia:

Early in the movie, we are shown a front-page newspaper article about the deaths of the protagonists' wives. This front page also contains sidebar articles detailing events from two of director Peter Greenaway's subsequent films, The Belly of an Architect (1987) (the article headlined "Architect Dies") and Drowning by Numbers (1988) (the article headlined "A Hot Bath Heart Attack").

Quotes:

Alba Bewick: I am about to become a mother, and you are about to become a father... or fathers.
Oswald Deuce: You what?
Oliver Deuce: You are?
Alba Bewick: I am.
Oswald Deuce: Good lord.
Oliver Deuce: You can?
Alba Bewick: Of course! Is leglessness a form of contraception?
Oswald Deuce: I'm not sure.
Alba Bewick: You're not sure!
Oswald Deuce: I'm delighted!
[...]

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story (2003)

Greenaway best movie - though still not for every one

A Zed and Two Noughts (or Zoo) is Greenaway's best film. Made during the transition between his early experimental short films and his later more narrative (and more celebrated) ones, his free flowing structure is at its best here, fresh, witty and cerebral (some would also say pedantic). In later films, one has the feeling that Greenaway has try to go back to the style set by Zoo, but the results (like in 8 1/2 women) are almost unwatchable. The plot: two biologists twins working in a zoo, specialized in studying the putrefaction of animals, lose their wives in a car accident. They hook up with a strange woman who lost her leg in that accident. Meanwhile, there are references to Vermeer throughout (what does this has to do with zoology, only Greenaway knows), speeded up shots of real rotting animals, Michael Nyman's hypnotic score, and also a girl who learns the alphabet through giant letters that are linked with live animals (for example, z is for zebra, as in a children's book). Deliberately non naturalistic, Greenaway makes from this strange melange a very compelling movie, though undoubtedly very hard to take for some.