A Zed and Two Noughts (1985)

I don't know what people see in this movie, whatever it is, I'm obviously too ignorant to get it. Peter Greenway movies are like black licorice-- obviously somebody likes it because it's on the shelves, but who likes it and why is not clear. Just be sure not to a) take your middle-aged parents to see it or b) take young kids to see it or c) take a date to see it (unless you want to get rid of them, or they are truly wierd).

Anyway, brothers both lose their wives in a car crash and the lady who was driving the car loses her leg. Meanwhile, the brothers get into doing time-lapse photography of decomposing animals they steal from the zoo. A number of people commit suicide for reasons that don't make much sense.

Fmovies: The lowest possible rating is a 1, but I reserve dispensing that to films that feature live animal killings like Cannibal Holocaust, Men Behind the Sun ...and all those lovely Korean films. This movie treads the line dangerously, showing gross-out images of decaying animals ad nauseum, but no animals were killed on screen. Still, excluding animal snuff films, this is about the WORST thing I've ever seen on a screen. Peter Greenaway may have an eye for symmetry, colours, contrast and shadows. Fine. But that's where his talents stop. He has no ability to write dialogue, to tell a story, to delve into philosophy or to inspire our emotions (other than disgust). It takes no talent to shock an audience. My 3 year old nephew can shock an audience by holding a dog turd. But how many directors can play on our more elevated emotions? Not Greenaway. He knows this. So he hides behind sarcasm, kind of like the dweeb at work who has no charm whatsoever, so he attempts to compensate by being "the sarcastic guy". Peter Greenaway is that guy. Imagine standing next to "the sarcastic guy" at work for two hours at the water cooler whilst he babbles about nonsensical, gross, vulgar things. That's the only way he can have a memorable impact. But all the while you're just standing there saying, "I wish he would shut up." Btw, if you don't know what I'm talking about, chances are "the sarcastic guy" is YOU. I tried so very, very, very, very hard to like this movie. I ignored the inane musical score (the same 4 chords plucked over & over, like some sort of Philip Glass nightmare). I put aside my revulsion for the fat naked women and hairy men with little weenies (Greenaway's trademark). And I accepted the histrionic acting as a deliberate satire. OK, fine. But an hour into it I realized that movies are not supposed to be a chore. They're not supposed to be some sort of endurance test whereby the audience learns the virtue of patience. Cripes, movies are supposed to be enjoyable or--at the very least--interesting. If you browse the discussion boards you'll see that the majority of Greenaway fans like him simply because "HE'S THE MOST SHOCKING DIRECTOR EVER!" or because "HIS FILMS ARE SO DISTURBING! AND WEIRD!" If these phrases appeal to you, then have a nice time. But if you're sitting there wondering, "yeah? what else?" Then you, like me, would profit by spending your time elsewhere.

I first saw this film when it came to British cinemas in 1985. Now, in 2010, I've just seen it again. 25 years ago, as an impressionable film school student, I was both baffled and fascinated by its multi-layered imagery and anarchic themes. Greenaway was my hero then for he had mastery over cinematic form and a unique style that I had never seen before. Added to Michael Nyman's powerful, pulsating music, this film gave me the shivers and also left me breathless. Looking at the film today, it seems barren of emotion (intentional) and laboured. I struggled to sit through the film, and luckily, as I was watching it at home, I could get up at intervals to make tea, have a cigarette, and look out the window. I made the effort to watch Greenaway's patronising director's commentary and 'introduction' to the film, but it still left me with the feeling that I had largely wasted two hours. I may have learnt something about sumptuous photography and resonating soundtracks, but A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS left me cold, sickened and bored. In 1985 this film may have caused a stir, being made in the negativity and economic/cultural stagnation of Thatcher's Conservative Britain. I remember that was not a good period to live through. A film like this might have caused a sensation among cinema-goers, as it is certainly original. But that is its saving grace.

A Zed and Two Noughts fmovies. 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.

All you need to make cinema is a point of view (and of course the view to which it points). Or a frame of reference and the reference which it frames. In Greenaway all these exist together, knowingly, as forms within forms.

A story of twins looking to overcome grief by studying the decay of death is the reference here. Zebras, lizards, swans, we see the empty shells of body decay before the camera. Kept under the scrutiny of our gaze in life, inside cages, they remain under it once dead. At what point do all these symmetries which conjoined together make up the miracle of life stop being the sum of their parts, and by which process; how much of these parts that we understand as the self can be taken out before the self is no longer recognized; and the symmetry once broken, what mystery renews it.

These obscure ruminations are framed against the question of existence, which implies god and pattern. How come that something so systemised, so perfectly designed and evolved from nothing, from amoeba and algea, can come to pass by the whim of chance? Having taken millions of years for creation to unravel its complexity, why does it take a second to destroy it? Which is to ask, at what point does the system, which in hindsight appears ordained and patterned, become random and meaningless.

Various eccentricities are enacted in this process, all pointing to some kind of symbolic nakedness.

When the legless woman gives birth to new life, twins again, the old twins, the blueprint for them, must step aside. The film ends with an poignant thought. Having carefully staged their own death so that the decay that follows may be captured on film, we see how nature intrudes upon this scene and foils the effort.

An atheist himself, Greenaway here gives us a pessimism that cuts deep; no consciousness survives this.

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.