IMDb RATING
7.2/10
7.8K
YOUR RATING
Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals.Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals.Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals.
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis film was Peter Greenaway's first collaboration with cinematographer Sacha Vierny, who went on to shoot virtually all of Greenaway's work in the 1980s and 1990s, until Vierny's death in 2001. Greenaway referred to Vierny as his "most important collaborator".
- Quotes
Alba Bewick: In the land of the legless the one-legged woman is queen.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story (2003)
- SoundtracksThe Teddy Bear's Picnic
Music by John W. Bratton
Lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy
Performed by The BBC Dance Orchestra
Directed by Henry Hall
Courtesy of EMI MUSIC PUBLISHING LTD and EMI RECORDS LTD
Also sung by Venus De Milo (Frances Barber)
Featured review
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 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.
- chaos-rampant
- May 28, 2011
- Permalink
- How long is A Zed & Two Noughts?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- A Zed and Two Noughts
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content