A Zed & Two Noughts

Introduction

Peter Greenaway followed his international art-house hit The Draughtsman's Contract with this extraordinary tale of obsession.

A car collides with a swan outside a zoo. Two women passengers die and the driver, Alba Bewick, has to have her leg amputated. Obsessed with the accident, the husbands of the women - twins Oliver and Oswald - embark on an affair with Alba and soon begin experimenting with the time-lapse aesthetics of decay.

A Zed & 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 Vierney's cinematography pays homage to Vermeer. Full of surprises and magnificent conumdrums, Greenaway's third feature is as perversely comic and teasing as it is shocking.

Press quotes

"Immensely entertaining... wickedly funny... How could you fail to love a film that features a prostitute who tells erotic stories about frogs... ?" NME

"The mixture of blackest farce and artistic erudition would be ridiculous in anything but the most assured hands, and Greenaway once again proves his mastery of the medium. Intellectually vigorous and artfully persuasive." The Face