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A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS
I may be remiss in reviewing this as a horror movie; in truth, I don’t know exactly what this film is. I can say for certain, though, that A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS, an early feature by England’s Peter Greenaway, is a morbid and fascinating oddity unlike anything else.
The Package
Peter Greenaway has made quite a few idiosyncratic films since his debut
feature, the three hour BBC mock documentary THE FALLS, in 1980. His
innovative, heavily symbolic films are characterized by an unnerving air of
cerebral detachment and overriding obsession with all things grotesque. 1985’s
A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS is probably Greenaway’s most potent exploration yet of his
favorite themes: sex, death and decay.
Cinematographer Sacha Vierny is a Greenaway mainstay, as was—at least until
1990’s PROSPERO’S BOOKS—composer Michael Nyman (which explains why Greenaway’s
post 1990 films tend to be markedly less satisfying than the others). Other
Greenaway trademarks are the wide-eyed little girl who impassively observes the
action (and who gets off much easier than the boy who circumcises himself in
Greenaway’s DROWNING BY NUMBERS, or the one who gets disemboweled in THE COOK,
THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER) and an overriding obsession with cataloguing
and codifying (in DROWINING BY NUMBERS there were numbers hidden in various
places throughout the film), which here takes the form of periodic recitations
of different animal species by supporting characters.
The Story
Oliver and Oswald Deuce are identical twins, although they don’t really
look alike when the film starts. Their wives are killed in a car crash when a
white swan escapes from a nearby zoo and collides with the vehicle.
Understandably despondent, the twins somehow end up romancing the car’s driver
Alba, who lost a leg—and an unborn child—in the accident. They also become
obsessed with decay, and take to utilizing time-lapse photography documenting
the decomposition of elements, starting with fruit and progressing to dead
animals. Alba, meanwhile, has her remaining leg amputated and eventually finds
herself pregnant by Oliver and Oswald, resulting in the unexpected birth of twin
boys. Oliver and Oswald, for their part, are looking more and more alike, and
even take to fitting their bodies into a single shirt and pants. Inevitably,
Alba dies, after which the twins decide to conduct their final photographic
experiment: filming their own deaths.
If all this sounds a mite absurd…well, it is. Greenaway’s
work exists in its own hermetically sealed universe, as far from conventional
“reality” as possible. Nearly everything is symbolic (although only a
Rhodes Scholar could figure out what it all means): the central characters
aren’t named Deuce for nothing, the animals that figure prominently throughout
aren’t accidental (particularly the zebras) and nor is the frequent use of the
old British children’s song “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic.” The title itself has at least
one meaning other than its literal interpretation (which is, FYI, a description
of the letters in “ZOO”—not being European, it admittedly it took me a while to
figure that one out).
The Direction
Although the story involves “heavy” themes—death, grief, madness and
murder—the film has all the urgency of a National Geographic special. It often
feels like a catatonic recounting of Cronenberg’s DEAD RINGERS comprised (as is
Greenaway’s custom) of wide shots composed more like paintings than traditional
film setups. The atmosphere is deliberately stagy and artificial, which
somewhat blunts the story’s underlying darkness. Other leavening factors are
the cinematography, which is disarmingly beautiful throughout, and the jaunty
music (which, in the manner of all of the Greenaway-Nyman collaborations, was
written beforehand with no thought of the finished film and then simply laid in
by the director). Somehow, though, these elements, although they might seem in
direct counterpoint to Greenaway’s aims, end up as indispensable components of
the film’s overall effectiveness. It would, after all, be an extremely
boring movie (which it often is anyway) without ‘em!
Vital Statistics
A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS
Channel Four Films/Skouras Pictures
Director: Peter Greenaway
Producers: Kees Kasander, Peter Sainsbury
Screenplay: Peter Greenaway
Cinematography: Sacha Vierny
Editor: John Wilson
Cast: Andrea Ferreol, Brian Deacon, Eric Deacon, Frances Barber, Joss Ackland,
Jim Davidson, Agnes Brulet, Gerard Thoolen