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2

The universe is a Z00,
and we are the animals,
observed only by nothingness.

Trapped in a cage of organic material,
decomposing and sprouting,
sprouting and decomposing.

We watch,
as nothing watches back,
full of life & lifeless as can be.

The earth is a prison,
a jail, a place of claustrophobic comfort.
Everything within is without.

Without something,
and that something is always,
always at the tip of our tongue,
always lurking in the shadows,
never to reveal itself.

We are the unknown,
that knows all (or so we think).
But aren't we everything?
Yes -- at the very least, to ourselves.

1

wes anderson found dead in a ditch with peter greenaway filming his decay

Review by braden ★★★★½ Liked

“Imagine that; the body, in all its delicious detail, fading away, leaving a skeleton with iron legs.”

With exemplary world building and grotesque imagery; Peter Greenaway’s A Zed & Two Noughts is an arresting and masterfully built meditation on duality, life, and decay explored through the symmetrical grief of two widowed twins. Sprawling over a multitude of ideas surrounding nature, evolution, and humanity, the weird and often disturbing narrative is graciously complimented by striking cinematography, rich colours, an effectual orchestral score, and strange, unsettling visuals of real animals decomposing in stop motion; excelling in both creation of atmosphere and capturing of attention. It can seem kind of grandiose, but it doesn’t try not to be, and Greenaway’s artistic vision and Vierny’s eye for photography just bring the material to life so wonderfully.

16

what is ‘i’? 

a box of belongings? a faded photograph? a polemical painting? you choose. it doesn’t matter anyway.

everyday. down the streets. all day, working hard. the end of day comes and home is home. the walk is a form of torture, a prodding of the gods above - as though the day had not been hard enough!

home is home. the boxes of photographs stand above all else, the plates sit upon those very boxes. why not reach them? it seems impossible. it seems unusual. why are the plates upon the boxes? must every action become a battle? must all be a fight?

why is the fight not solemn, nullified by the suffering already taking place? 

the forks…

14

Z O O

Transgressive disintegration of the human anatomy seen through animalistic eyes... Death as a gradual process instead of as a concept, a transition or a metaphor. It's literally the act of decomposing and, in the way, it destroys human value. Not that Greenaway is suggesting humankind is filth (it is, though), but as long as we attach ourselves to self-masturbatory obsessions that hold no real/productive purpose, we will be the most irrational animals among God's creation and the observers will be those left at our mercy. Bert Haanstra once suggested this concept with a literal zoo in 1961, shooting humans making remarkably similar anthropomorphic and physical gestures to the ones that are caged, but who is really behind…

4

The fact that this is only my second favorite 80's movie about twins who work in a field pertaining to biology, share lovers, and drive themselves towards mutually assured destruction says a lot about the 80's as a decade, although I'm not quite sure what.

28

A zebra has stripes that are nearly consistent in their perfect symmetry, and yet no two zebra have an identical stripe pattern. Distinctiveness is in direct contrast to uniformity—disorder and order pitted against each other. I believe this is the core theme of A Zed & Two Naughts, a film which has a title reflecting nearly every aspect of its narrative. Beginnings are only beginnings if there exists a clear end, and there can be no endings without beginnings. Decomposition is seen as a way of deconstructing and reckoning with our delicate, feeble mortality, but in a turn of grand irony only Mr. Greenaway is capable of pulling off, it’s none other than nature itself that serves as a foil to this…

Review by orson houellebecq ★★★★★ Liked

I find it ironic that Peter Greenaway has said that he wishes he could remake this, his "most troubled and troubling offspring", as he once called it, since not only is it one of my all-time favorite films, but I also think it is hands-down Greenaway's most singularly flawless achievement as a filmmaker. Appropriately, considering the film's preoccupation with symmetry, to me it feels like his most "balanced" work. It's thematically dense, visually immaculate, and above all, wickedly funny, something which doesn't seem to get mentioned often enough in relation to Greenaway's work. I've watched it too many times to still laugh out loud at every joke, but scene-for-scene I honestly consider it a brilliant comedy, on top of everything…

Review by fran hoepfner ★★★★ Liked

I just think Peter Greenaway is so romantic!

8

Film of a thousand cuts, tableaux rendered with an artist's eye for colour and composition. Rigorous formality framing meticulous reconstruction, an enigmatic master's coded fragments washed up on the shore of time. Girl with a red hat. The music lesson. The art of painting. Zoo ooz(e). Symmetry is key. Autogenetic transformation of unstable matter, apple to zebra. A menagerie of light, glass encased swan cadaver, inelegant in corpsed repose, fleeting signifier in the dark pool, temporary nexus, entrance to exit. Glass breakfast, siamese re-convergence, becoming one with unending putrescence and liquefaction snail mass. Compost rotting bodies, sweet oblivion in particulate re-configuration.

Review by Lou (rhymes with wow!) ★★★★ Liked

A Zed & Two Noughts is funnier than Greenaway's masterpiece The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, but it is also less concise. In of bizarreness (very), nudity (quite a bit) and awesomeness (pure), they are about on par.

I gotta own this on physical media. 💿❤️

2

in awe but feeling kinda gross — that seems like the greenaway vibe but i'd have to watch more