Film of a thousand cuts, tableaux rendered with an artists eye for colour and composition. When an accident with a white swan leaves alba without a leg and the deuces wives dead the trio must cope with a scheming doctor and their own grief. It is the brothers grief that leads to their fixation with natural decay of animal flesh. Oliver deuce, a successful doctor, is shattered when his wife is killed in a freak car accident involving a car being driven by alba bewick colliding with a very large rare bird.
Inside the rotterdam zoo which makes up the zed and two noughts of the title, near where the crash occurred, the grieving brothers brood over the causes of their wives deaths in this beautifullooking puzzle of a film. My main reason for focusing on this one is that the imagery and concept is the one thats stuck in my head, as well as that ive sampled some dialogue from that was used in my. Aussie dad comes up with brilliant game of noughts and crosses with a twist during covid19 lockdown. Peter greenaway after graduating from walthamstow college of art, he began a long period of employment as a film director and editor at the central office of information, a uk government department responsible for. Gradually, they advance to more and more complex organisms. When one takes a zed and two noughts, one might spell the word zoo. A woman loses a leg in a carcrash caused by a lowflying swan and during her convalescence, becomes an obsession both for her surgeon. Guusje van tilborgh standing in a bathroom beside a sink, a guy leaning over to pull up her red dress to expose her bush before she slaps him and he drops it. Alba survives the accident although she loses one leg, and her sinister physician eventually. The accident kills two other women, the wives of two twin zoologists, oliver and oswald.
But i would be lying if i had a full understanding of either of them, and now that all the supplemental. They become obsessed with death and film time lapse footage of putrefying animal corpses. Rigorous formality framing meticulous reconstruction, an enigmatic masters coded fragments washed up on the shore of time. Obsessed with the accident, the zoologist husbands of the dead women twins oliver and oswald become fascinated by the processes of decay and embark on an affair with the amputee.
A zed and two noughts is the tale of two separated siamesetwin zoologists oliver and oswald whose wives are killed in a swanrelated car accident. A zed and two noughts is a visceral and cerebral treat, as dead animals decompose to the jokey rhythms of michael nyman, symmetry is elevated beyond obsession, and sascha viernys cinematography pays homage to vermeer. Full of surprises and magnificent conundrums, greenaways third feature is as perversely comic and teasing as it is shocking. Distant voices, still lives and a zed and two noughts. Everytime i see a zed and two noughts i catch a phrase that i missed the double. An atheist himself, greenaway here gives us a pessimism that cuts deep. It is beautifully shot although i guess that is what you get for hiring. Deze bijzonder fraai door sacha vierny gefotografeerde film werd deels opgenomen in diergaarde blijdorp met een nederlandengelse rolbezetting en bevat in.
A zed and two noughts follows the lives of alba bewick, and oswald and oliver deuce. My main reason for focusing on this one is that the imagery and concept is the one thats stuck in my head, as well as that ive sampled some dialogue from that was used in my set for the soft riot live show, the idea being to use various samples and interludes to allow enough time to set up the synthesizers for the next track. I find it is very easy to admire a peter greenaway film but harder to love them and i think zoo captures this perfectly. Stefan dreess rating of the film a zed and two noughts stefan drees a perfect example for greenaways obsession with numbers, alphabetical orders, renaissance and early baroque painting in this case especially vermeer, but you can also find many references to brueghel e.
Oliver deuce, a successful doctor, is shattered when his wife is killed in a freak car accident involving the car being driven by alba bewick colliding with a very large rare bird. Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals. I admittedly dont know exactly what this film is, but can say for certain that a zed and two noughts, an early feature by englands peter greenaway, is a morbid and fascinating oddity unlike anything else peter greenaway has made quite a few idiosyncratic films since his debut feature, the three hour bbc mock documentary the falls, in 1980. Peter greenaways visceral and perversely comic third feature. Everything in this film is deliberate and meaningful, in contrast to life, or the view thereof it offers, anyway. Peter greenaways magnificently ambitious, seriously odd second film matches astonishing visuals to the themes of twinship, natural. A tale of two twin brothers whose wives are killed in a car accident caused by a white swan. His twin brother oswald is researching how carcasses decay at the local zoo. A masterpiece of modern cinema, a zed and two noughts is peter greenaways beautifully disturbing and darkly humorous take on erotic obsession and death.
This film was greenaways first collaboration with cinematographer sacha vierny. This comedic drama tells what happens when two zoologists face the results of a farcical tragedy in which both their wives were killed in a traffic accident that involved a swan. Watch a zed and two noughts, the british psychotronic film by peter. Full of surprises and magnificent conundrums, a zed and two noughts is a perversely comic and teasing treat for the mind and senses. Posted on march 31, 2017 by admin with no comments. 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. A zed and two noughts, released in 1985, is probably the most clinical and abstract of his 80s films and on the surface the one thats most detached emotionally. This film was greenaways first collaboration with cinematographer sacha vierny, who went on to shoot virtually all of greenaways work in the 1980s and 1990s, until viernys death. So while perusing the films leaving criterion channel for the month, i threw on the draughtsmans contract two nights ago and absolutely loved it. A woman loses a leg in a carcrash caused by a lowflying swan and. Alba bewick andrea ferreol is involved in a swanrelated car accident near the zoo. The film opens with an automobileswan accident in front of the rotterdam zoo. Movie info this twisted black comedy is obsessed in turn with swans, twins, and decay.
330 169 1138 876 1371 530 242 108 883 1072 1052 101 253 1309 109 518 1033 690 128 1153 662 313 503 353 1447 1142 649 39 1154 1135 956 473 455 953 598 1261 653 178 1285