Cheap A Zed & Two Noughts (DVD) (Brian Deacon, Eric Deacon) (Peter Greenaway) Price

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Customer Reviews of A Zed & Two Noughts

Humorous, intellectual, and perversely over the top. GREAT!
If you're looking for a movie to leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling at the end...then this is not for you! It is a visual essay as much as it is an anthology of scientific and philosophical musings. The film is about two brothers - Oliver & Oswald Deuce (played by Eric & Brian Deacon), zoologists by profession, whose wives die in a car accident. The driver, Alba Bewick (played by Andrea Ferreol) ends up with an amputated leg. Oliver & Oswald in their quest for details about the accident end up in a three-way love affair with Alba. The brothers become obsessed with decay, while Alba becomes obsessed with her one leg and eventually has her doctor amputate it as well. After the accident, the brothers engage in philosophical and scientific conversations about the beginnings of life on earth, evolution and the mechanics of decomposition. Soon after the accident Oswald says "I can't bear the thought of her (his wife) just rotting away." Then the Deuce brothers begin a conversation about how the decomposition of a body begins, the intestinal bacteria that set off the process and how in one lick of the human tongue the are 100,000 of these bacteria. And how Adam might have passed 200,000 of them onto Eve in a French Kiss. Then one of them says "What if Eve kissed Adam?" - "Unlikely! She would have used the first 100,000 (bacteria) on the apple" This is absolutely hilarious... they are having a hypothetical conversation about Genesis as if Adam & Eve were the true origin of mankind, when in reality, as scientists they cannot take such religious concepts seriously. At one point Oliver is watching a film on the evolution of species and the narrator says "If evolution had happened in a span of 365 days, then, man made his first appearance on the evening of December 31 just as daylight is fading." We hear the narrator of these documentaries on evolution a number of times in the background, later we hear him saying "...it is difficult for people to comprehend the evolutionary leap between the most sophisticated of apes to MAN, and more difficult still how LIFE could emerge out of NOTHING." College-level biology students and philosophy students would enjoy this film. The contrast between the moral and the perverse becomes increasingly intensified in the film with the use of philosophical quotes and excerpts. For example, when we are introduced to a woman named Venus DeMilo, she's dressed in black going into the zoo (where the Deuce brothers work) and a man with whom she obviously had sexual encounters asks her "How are the zebras?" In a very indifferent tone she answers, "Black and White." That is a wordplay on the aristotelian, objectivist, Ayn Rand idea of the black and white, good and evil. Venus DeMilo makes it very clear she finds obejctivism tedious, and the question of whether the zebra is a "black animal with white stripes or a white animal with black stripes" is irrelevant. There is a scene in the film which I found particularly intriguing, Venus DeMilo and Oliver are naked on the bed (presumably after a sexual encounter) and he has a tray full of live snails. He plays with the snails while she rants on and on with superficial small talk. Then she asks, "Why do you like snails so much?" Oliver says, "They're a primitive form of life... they help the world DECAY! They're also hermaphrodite... they can satisfy their own sexual needs!" Which in the context of things could be taken to be an indicator of the degree of contempt he feels toward having to resort to her for sexual satisfaction. Later when he's visiting a recovering Alba, Oliver blames her for the death of his wife. At this time we learn that Alba was ten weeks pregnant. Olivers says "It's your fault my wife is dead. Pregnant women are notoriously unreliable...especially when they're trying to procure an abortion!" Later in the film, Alba announces to the brothers that she's pregnant. Oliver and Oswald want to know who the father is. Alba says, "As far as I'm concerned you are both the fathers...what's a few SPERMATOZOA among brothers?" Then while the three of them are in bed Alba announces to them that she can tell they are twins. Oliver and Oswald admit to it, saying that even their wives never knew they were twins, and furthermore they were siamese twins. A Zed and Two Noughts is deeply intellectual at times, very irreverent, silly, and hystecally funny. Goes over the top in just about every scene. Writer and Director Peter Greenaway is brilliant. I have seen two other films by him: Drowning by Numbers and Prospero's Books. Both were beautifully photographed as is A Zed and Two Noughts. Art students should enjoy Peter Greenaway's use of chiaroscuro in his sets, the atmospheres created in his films through the use of light and shadow are magnificent. The characters in the film are like caricatures, much like people in real life. The film blurs the line between humans as the superior creatures certain philosophies claim them to be and the primitive, hairless apes they remain at their very core...their self-awareness notwithstanding. This film is a must see for the Liberal Arts Student.

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Humorous, intellectual, perverse and over the top. GREAT!
If you're looking for a movie to leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling at the end...then this is not for you! It is a visual essay as much as it is an anthology of scientific and philosophical musings. The film is about two brothers - Oliver & Oswald Deuce (played by Eric & Brian Deacon), zoologists by profession, whose wives die in a car accident. The driver, Alba Bewick (played by Andrea Ferreol) ends up with an amputated leg. Oliver & Oswald in their quest for details about the accident end up in a three-way love affair with Alba. The brothers become obsessed with decay, while Alba becomes obsessed with her one leg and eventually has her doctor amputate it as well. After the accident, the brothers engage in philosophical and scientific conversations about the beginnings of life on earth, evolution and the mechanics of decomposition. Soon after the accident Oswald says "I can't bear the thought of her (his wife) just rotting away." Then the Deuce brothers begin a conversation about how the decomposition of a body begins, the intestinal bacteria that set off the process and how in one lick of the human tongue the are 100,000 of these bacteria. And how Adam might have passed 200,000 of them onto Eve in a French Kiss. Then one of them says "What if Eve kissed Adam?" - "Unlikely! She would have used the first 100,000 (bacteria) on the apple" This is absolutely hilarious... they are having a hypothetical conversation about Genesis as if Adam & Eve were the true origin of mankind, when in reality, as scientists they cannot take such religious concepts seriously. At one point Oliver is watching a film on the evolution of species and the narrator says "If evolution had happened in a span of 365 days, then, man made his first appearance on the evening of December 31 just as daylight is fading." We hear the narrator of these documentaries on evolution a number of times in the background, later we hear him saying "...it is difficult for people to comprehend the evolutionary leap between the most sophisticated of apes to MAN, and more difficult still how LIFE could emerge out of NOTHING." College-level biology students and philosophy students would enjoy this film. The contrast between the moral and the perverse becomes increasingly intensified in the film with the use of philosophical quotes and excerpts. For example, when we are introduced to a woman named Venus DeMilo, she's dressed in black going into the zoo (where the Deuce brothers work) and a man with whom she obviously had sexual encounters asks her "How are the zebras?" In a very indifferent tone she answers, "Black and White." That is a wordplay on the aristotelian, objectivist, Ayn Rand idea of the black and white, good and evil. Venus DeMilo makes it very clear she finds obejctivism tedious, and the question of whether the zebra is a "black animal with white stripes or a white animal with black stripes" is irrelevant. There is a scene in the film which I found particularly intriguing, Venus DeMilo and Oliver are naked on the bed (presumably after a sexual encounter) and he has a tray full of live snails. He plays with the snails while she rants on and on with superficial small talk. Then she asks, "Why do you like snails so much?" Oliver says, "They're a primitive form of life... they help the world DECAY! They're also hermaphrodite... they can satisfy their own sexual needs!" Which in the context of things could be taken to be an indicator of the degree of contempt he feels toward having to resort to her for sexual satisfaction. Later when he's visiting a recovering Alba, Oliver blames her for the death of his wife. At this time we learn that Alba was ten weeks pregnant. Olivers says "It's your fault my wife is dead. Pregnant women are notoriously unreliable...especially when they're trying to procure an abortion!" Later in the film, Alba announces to the brothers that she's pregnant. Oliver and Oswald want to know who the father is. Alba says, "As far as I'm concerned you are both the fathers...what's a few SPERMATOZOA among brothers?" Then while the three of them are in bed Alba announces to them that she can tell they are twins. Oliver and Oswald admit to it, saying that even their wives never knew they were twins, and furthermore they were siamese twins. A Zed and Two Noughts is deeply intellectual at times, very irreverent, silly, and hystecally funny. Goes over the top in just about every scene. Writer and Director Peter Greenaway is brilliant. I have seen two other films by him: Drowning by Numbers and Prospero's Books. Both were beautifully photographed as is A Zed and Two Noughts. Art students should enjoy Peter Greenaway's use of chiaroscuro in his sets, the atmospheres created in his films through the use of light and shadow are magnificent. The characters in the film are like caricatures, much like people in real life. The film blurs the line between humans as the superior creatures certain philosophies claim them to be and the primitive, hairless apes they remain at their very core...their self-awareness notwithstanding. This film is a must see for the Liberal Arts Student.

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Get the BFI Version
If you have a European or multi-region DVD player, get the BFI edition of this movie, which includes a director's commentary and introduction, trailers for this and The Draughtsman's Contract and extracts from a "making of" documentary.

The film itself? Brilliant, arch, beautifully photographed and probably Greenaway's most accessible work.