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A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)

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28 comments in total

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13 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Search for the Red Herring, 26 July 2000
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Spoilers follow, but it hardly matters.

Cosmetic amputation, timelapse of rotting corpses. siamese twins fathering twins, bias against black and white animals, a crooked vet who is a Vermeer counterfeiter, and multiple suicides all to children's music. Forget all that. It is just a framework for lush compositions and an ornate allegorical framework.

Pretentious? Preposterous? Predicatory? Naah. This is a wonderful film, much richer symbolically than `Cook,' a stronger narrative than `Drowning,' better photography and music than `Belly,' of the following year. A good Greenaway is something to be relished.

Which is the best Greenaway? This is the best start, I think. `Prospero's Books' and `The Pillow Book' are the most accomplished without compromise. I rank this with `The Draughtsman's Contract,' and `Drowning by Numbers;' all three have concessions to an understandable narrative. `The Falls' is a must, but takes discipline.

But with this film, he has temporarily abandoned the layering and successive self-referential annotation that is his most unique contribution to the art. The only such effort is the thread of a film about the origin of life that is interwoven. One twin searches it for the red herring among the clues, the red herring that explains the trumping of randomness over purpose.

Before viewing, it helps to view the 26 Vermeer paintings.

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8 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Elegant Tale of Decomposing, 7 February 2007

Author: Galina from Virginia, USA

I knew how strange and unusual Greenaway could be but Zed, I believe could take the cake :). I am not sure what it is all about but I still enjoy the triumvirate Greenaway - Sasha Verny- Michael Nyman. Some ideas and images Greenaway will use in the later "8 1/2 women" and "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover" - especially, the soundtrack. "Dead Ringers" and "Mon oncle d'Amérique" (two beautiful weirdnesses themselves) also come to mind while watching Greenaway's elegant tale of decomposing which is also his meditations about life, death and grief. As in earlier "The Draughtsman's Contract (1982), Greenaway explores the relationship between the close relatives - the twin brothers are in the center of "A Zed & two Noughts". The movie is also a modern retelling of an ancient myth about Leda and Zeus who took the form of a swan and slept with Leda on the same night as her husband, King Tyndareus. Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta.

Greenaway considers that 90% of his films one way or another refers to paintings. "A Zed & two Noughts" refers openly and with great admiration to the paintings of Johannes Vermeer van Delft.

"A Zed & two Noughts" is not easy film to watch, its characters are not sympathetic, it lacks warmth and sentimentality but as always in Greenaway's films, it is a feast for eyes, ears, and for brain.

7.5/10

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Buick, Bewick...Twins born to Twins - Get it?, 26 January 2000
Author: Chris Frazier (ufrazc00@umail.ucsb.edu) from UCSB, California

Greenaway's obsessions with lists, wordplay, coincidence, sexuality, the surreal, and the explicit (not to mention the "conventionally used" ones like men and women, birth and eating and death, physiology (formal and psychological), and abstraction) come to a head in this film. A bizarre mileau of fancy digressions and focused narrativity create a film which is perhaps too obtuse for first time viewers but is, as far as I'm concerned, the best way to initiate oneself into the "world" of Greenaway.

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6 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Greenaway best movie - though still not for every one, 16 December 2006

Author: Andres Salama from Buenos Aires, Argentina

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.

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8 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Appeals to the brain more than the gut, 22 April 2005

Author: bodnotbod from United Kingdom

Peter Greenaway is arty. Painfully so. However he readily admits that this film is "self-conscious", "manufactured" and he says that all cinema is probably as "artificial" a form as you can get.

This film is beautiful to look at. Greenaway was inspired, visually, by paintings of the mid 17th century, particularly those of Vermeer. Almost every shot is composed like a painting. Many of the shots are symmetrical, walls are filmed flat so that the horizontal lines are parallel with the top and bottom of the frame. Objects are placed on tables as if subjects for a still life. Lighting is used in an alternation of light, shade,light,shade receding to the back of the picture, which is a signature of the type of 17th century, Western art that Greenaway is paying homage to.

The substance of the film follows weighty themes, all of which are explained in great detail through the director's commentary: evolution, light and twin-ship.

What is lacking is emotion. This is a cerebral film. Your emotional reaction to it will be through the imagery, be it beautiful or repulsive. You will not engage with the characters on an emotional level. You'll find them hard to relate to. The performances are stilted and amateur theatrical. It is fortunate, then, that Michael Nyman provides a fantastic score (present on almost every scene and almost outstaying its welcome) which prevents the dialogue (the script leaves a lot to be desired too) rendering everything flat.

Rent this if you enjoy visuals for their own sake, if you wear spectacles and if you like holding your chin in your hand and frowning. I qualify on all those points, so I enjoyed it a great deal.

Extra points for an extraordinarily thorough director's commentary on the DVD which serves to pull out all the hidden depths. Though one could make the point that an explanation that adds so much extra understanding leaves you feeling that the film failed adequately to convey much of what was intended.

DVD easter eggs (worth seeing): http://www.dvd.net.au/hidden.cgi?movie_id=10484

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9 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
An intricate & textured study of decay & deterioration., 30 May 2000

Author: Afracious from England

The film begins with the sound of a car crash. The next frame unfolds to show us a white car with a swan embedded in its windscreen, and a woman shouting out in agony. We can also see two women in the back of the car motionless. Who are then imposed on to a newspaper headline: SWAN CRASH TWO DIE, it says. The deceased women were married to twin brothers, zoologists Oliver and Oswald Deuce. After the accident they grieve at the bedside of the stricken survivor of the crash, a lady named Alba Bewick, who has had her leg amputated. At first they blame her for the accident, then later start to both sleep with her. Most of their time is spent photographing dead animals and plants. Some of these are shown decaying quickly, accompanied by good music from Michael Nyman. Also around the zoo is a prostitute named Venus De Milo, who the brothers both use. A strange figure named Van Hoyten. And also the film features the only feature film appearance of the English comedian Jim Davidson, who will be familiar to viewers in England. He plays Joshua Plate, an assistant at the zoo. Eventually Alba has her other leg amputated, and also has twin babies by the Deuce brothers. Yes, she claims they are by both of them. It then leads to a tragic conclusion. It is a fascinating film to watch. Beautiful to look at, as always with Greenaway's films. It offers the viewer many layers and textures to explore. Each scene is delicately structured. Something different. Watch it again and again.

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Heartless and soulless, 16 April 2008

Author: ustickm from Ottawa, Canada

Here's another review to stuff at the back of the "Zed" log with the other pans. I loved "Drowning By Numbers" so was interested in this as a film previous to it. "Drowning" is basically absurdist, like "Zed", but it also has humour, warmth & humanity. This thing is an absurdist black hole. Seems there's a lot of symmetry in Greenaway's universe, and in some circles symmetry is considered a close adjunct of meaning, but here the opposite is true. Striking cinematography aside (the only thing that earned this film its 2 points), this is a waste of time. I found myself wondering why I was still sitting in the seat. It is ideologically driven: Greenaway has a philosophical world-view to get across and nothing stands in its way. The characters are ciphers in its service: we care absolutely nothing for them. The film is an expression of an intellectual death obsession. It is the fact that the driving force here is intellectual that makes the film disgusting and pretentious. An egghead's movie about his despair at being an egghead. Avoid at all costs.

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3 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Highly visual post modern film, 14 June 2003
Author: ian curtis from at the Factory in Pittsburgh

A rewarding post modern film about life and decay and the effects of a single moment on a person's life. Great sets and photography by the legendary cinematographer Sacha Vierny, this film makes you ultra aware that you are watching a film, or a sort of theatrical filmed piece. Greenaway is an aquired but very rewarding taste, and no other director makes films as he does. A disturbing somber film for serious fans of modern cinema. Greenaway is a must in your education of film.

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4 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Obsession with symmetry, 28 February 2002
Author: tsais_or_tsain

ZOO is a film based upon the symmetry involved in nature. Two brothers (born as Siamese twins now separated) both lose their wives in a car crash caused by a pregnant swan flying into their car. It turns out that both women were expecting. The two brothers both mourn the passing of their wives and unborn children and become increasing obsessed with life and death, particularly the transition between the two states. The Brothers happen to both work in a zoo as vets and use the zoos equipment in ever more bizarre experiments to observe the process of decay via time lapse photography (the results of which are shown frequently throughout the movie).

The film progresses via a series of well thought out scenes, the visual content of which are more important than either the action or the plot. Greenway continues to explore the necessity of symmetry in nature and also its artistic merit. This however, is a subterfuge for the real meaning of the film, which is the realization of man that he lives alone in a Godless and empty universe where life and both its beginning and ending seem purposeless.

A visual feast but a little pretentious.a bit like this message really.

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5 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
"In the land of the leg-less, the one-leg woman is queen", 21 February 1999

Author: Happy-25 from Dallas, Texas

Two zoologist twin brothers lose each of their wives in a freak car crash involving an escaped swan from the zoo. They become obsessed with understanding death, and the creation of life. They study decaying objects, creation films, and trifling details of the accident & the days events that led to the crash. They seek answers with the zoo's prostitute and the one-legged woman (who is the sole survivor of the car crash).

Beautiful scenes, and memorizing music.

The first time I saw this film I was screening it for the staff at my theatre. Everyone but me left to see something else. I could not take my eyes off of the screen. It was amazing. This film may sound a little morbid, but it is about two people dealing with death in his own way. Maybe I liked it so much because I too recently lost some loved ones just prior to seeing this film. I have seen it numerous times since, and I even bought the tape.

Do NOT miss this film!

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