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30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Humorous, intellectual, perverse and over the top. GREAT!, January 17, 2000
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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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
truly excruciating in the most positive sense..., November 18, 1999
This review is from: Zed & Two Noughts [VHS] (VHS Tape)
this is easily one of my favorite films. NO ONE I show it to seems to understand why. It is stunningly photographed, flawlessly executed, mind-numbingly cerebral. Symmetry freaks, watch this one closely! Peter Greenaway is not for those who just want to "take in a flick"...but everyone should watch at least one of his masterpieces.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gorgeously filmed and elaborately constructed conceptual tour-de-force, January 31, 2008
I am very excited that Zeitgeist is putting out this new dvd transfer of this exceptional film. This is Peter Greenaway at his finest, his obsession with ordering lives and things and with the discovery of symmetries between the obsessions that drive both science and sexuality is perfectly meshed by the story of two twin zoologists who grieve the passing of their wives in a bizarre car accident by simultaneously embarking upon a quixotic research project into the nature of decomposition and an affair with the amputee who had been driving the car. Thrown into the mix are a storytelling prostitute and aspiring writer named Venus de Milo, a murderer of black and white animals, a man who lost his legs for loving horses a little too much, a surgeon who is overly fond of amputation and obsessed by Vermeer. The best cinematic comparison is probably Alain Resnais' My American Uncle -- both films raise questions about the pretense that we are above the animals, that we are rational creatures and are not driven by instinct and drive. This film argues, I think, that we are unique and interesting animals and at our most unique and distinctive when we show our obsession with and drive to establish our distinction from the other animals. The music throughout is perfect and matches the style and tone of the film superbly; the story, while utterly unique is nevertheless comprehensible and never less than fascinating. It is the kind of film that rewards repeated viewings, and is a must-see film for those who delight in the possibilities of cinema, and are willing to suspend their expectations and be caught up by the delightful imagination and insight of one of the most distinctive and compelling filmmakers.
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