Una zeta y dos ceros

(Movie quote) - "So, tell me - Is a zebra a white animal with black stripes, or is it a black animal with white stripes?"

Even though I definitely found this 1985, British, "art" film to be something of a "hit'n'miss" production, it was its very striking camera-work by French cinematographer, Sacha Vierny, that certainly helped to elevate it to a position that set it well-beyond the realm of being considered just purely mundane entertainment.

Surreal, eccentric and bizarre (and, yes, at times, quite puzzling) - "A Zed And 2 Noughts" definitely had me wondering, often enough, what kind of a curve director Peter Greenaway was going to hurl at me next with this weird and somewhat disturbing tale of obsession with decaying flesh and the amputation of body parts.

Certainly not a film to please everyone (and certainly not a film with a gripping plot-line) - I, for one, thought "A Zed And 2 Noughts" was well-worth a view simply for the freakish biology lesson that it quite cleverly wedged into its wacky, little story (all at no extra cost).

For better or for worse, A Zed & Two Noughts is a very unusual film. This is hardly surprising given that it was directed by the avant-gardist director Peter Greenaway. It begins with a car accident at a zoo, where two women are killed when their vehicle collides with a pregnant swan. These women are twins who were in turn married to a couple of twin zoologists, Oliver and Oswald Deuce. Shortly afterwards these men start simultaneous affairs with the survivor of the accident, the driver Alba Bewick who lost a leg as a result of the crash. She later has the other one removed surgically for symmetrical reasons and falls pregnant to the twins.

This strange film features both the good and the bad typical of Greenaway. The good is the visual presentation and distinctive bizarre qualities, the bad is more or less any time someone opens their mouths, which unfortunately is quite often. Greenaway is really terrible at writing dialogue. His script constantly tries to be clever, which is not the same thing as actually being clever. Needless to say, the dialogue is painful to listen to and ultimately makes the film hard work and not in a good way. But setting this aside, amongst other things, it's an intriguing concoction about symmetry, birth and decay. Of the latter are several time-lapse films showing a variety of animals and organic matter decaying - films which were fascinating and repulsive in equal measure. We also have excellent cinematography from Greenaway's common collaborator Sacha Vierney, with many shots being a joy to behold. The other significant cog in the wheel is the typically persistent minimalist score from Michael Nyman, which is sometimes brilliant even if it does border on irritating at others. We also have the most unexpected collaborator in any Greenaway film - none other than Jim 'Nick Nick' Davidson, the politically incorrect stand-up comedian who appears as a zoo-keeper.

In summary, A Zed & Two Noughts was an interesting film spoiled by Greenaway's horrible dialogue and awful characters. If you can get beyond those it does offer some fascinating stuff but you sure have got your work cut out with this one.

This is definitely one of the more disgusting films I've watched, and not in a good way. This movie made me physically ill, and though it was mind-bending and beautifully coreographed, the subject matter and the lead characters' inevitable decline into utter insanity that is characteristic of Greenaway films was a bit much for me. I'm saying this and I loved Santa Sangre. Go figure.

A pair of twin brothers (who have different hair color somehow, and as it turns out were originally Siamese twins) become obsessed with the subjects of decay, evolution, and greif when their wives are killed in a car crash at the Zoo. They start conducting utterly repulsive experiments that involve time-elapse films of animals and fruits rotting away. And to top it all off, there's a plot in all of this, by a couple of poachers posing as zoo staff who plan to make a profit from all this. The rest is just entirely too disgusting/weird/complicated to explain clearly, but I will give you some hints about the ending: It involves a rack. And snails. And floodlights. And a record player.

This fine film is written in an intelligent, multilayered way of such a degree and quality as I have only seen in top-notch theatre. Greenaway delivers a dark but intoxicating tale of decay, evolution and the crucial importance of symmetry.

The themes of this film emerge not only through Greenaway's script, but also through the images produced by his tight, clear directing. The choice of images and ability to linger on single shots suggests a creative mind as focused and obsessed as the characters he portrays.

As with many of Greenaway's works, this certainly isn't a film for anyone wanting a cheap thrill and easy satisfaction. Its particularly dark humour and images of accelerated decay and death are more likely to please those who prefer to view film as a medium of art than those seeking mere entertainment.

It is a very long time since a film has impressed me quite as much as this.

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.