Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

jzappa This is not a film I could or would ever see again, but I am not about to criticize it as much as I am going to praise it on a technical and aesthetic level. At the core of the movie is the sad and enormously disconcerting theme of humans using animals to enrich their lives, which are lived in a high-tech, hyperstylized human world in which nature is losing its place. I am not a stickler when it comes to disturbing images. Indeed, Salo and Lake of Fire are favorite films of mine. It is animals whose suffering offends me; they are not consciously cruel and do not betray one another. Even when they are cruel, it is the way of survival in the natural world.Nonetheless, this richly developed film about decay by Peter Greenaway truly sees and says something profound and disturbing about humanity. It is a purely metaphysical experience. For example, there is a scene where two character talk about the relevance of the film they're watching. We see fascinating elaborate showcases of making films of carcass decay. Even brief establishing shots and any one of the few cutaways Greenaway allows are layered with nuance and mathematical precision.Purely a sensory approach, Greenaway's struck me as very thematically similar to David Cronenberg's: The focus is on the physiological effects of experience and environment. But where Cronenberg works ambiently inward, Greenaway radiates smolderingly outward, his standard being pale mise-en-scenes with intensely emboldened focal colors. And whereas the dark and ethereal nature of Cronenberg's work is accentuated by Howard Shore's brooding orchestral score, Greenaway betrays the psychosis of his wide, still, panoramic, painterly set-ups with Michael Nyman's infectiously eccentric and complex soundtrack.I am not good at preparing myself for the human effect on animals, but I admire and appreciate ZOO's audacious and brandishingly external style. It is the sort of work that could be deemed style over substance, and maybe it is to some degree, but it is the style that informs function of the narrative. It is form over function that distinguishes humans from the rest of the animal world, and yet the form here is a smolderingly animalistic one. We cannot escape our nature.

Terrell-4 How does one define oddness? I'd suggest by starting with two words: Peter Greenaway. You can also use those two words to define "Unique cinema visions," "total control," "beautiful views" and "don't mess with me." Greenaway is his own world, and you're either eager for a visit or you'll insist on staying off the space ship. I'd suggest you prepare for your visit by packing away any compulsion you might have to explain things...such as his meaning, his importance...all those categories, lists and twos of things...and your own squeamishness. "I don't make pictures that have a sell-by date," Greenaway once said. That's especially true of A Zed and Two Noughts, where a good many of the things we'll see have long passed their sell-by date. We start the movie with a double death in a car crash by a zoo...death by swan on a lane called Swan's Way. The wives of our two zoologists may be gone, but their husbands, twins and formerly joined twins Oswald and Oliver Deuce, will lead us on an exploration of grief and decay, illustrated by their stop motion movies. We will meet a beautiful amputee, soon to have her remaining leg off by a mad surgeon, probably for issues of symmetry. In addition to wet decay, we'll enjoy vomiting, frontal nudity, Vermeer, Greenaway's magnificent color palette, black and white animals, a white mare named Hortense, several interesting fetishes, plus the movie's unique chapter headings: Mercury, Apple, Prawn, Fish, Crocodile, Swan, Dog, Zebra and Escargot. Black comedy, indeed. I'll admit I don't think I understood a thing about A Zed and Two Noughts. I started to read what some critics and fans have offered by way of analysis and found much of what they had to say, from my point of view, largely incomprehensible, too detailed or too dull. Greenaway is chilly, controlling and all about style layered heavily on top of substance. He can make Stanley Kubrick look loosey-goosey. I found a Zed and Two Noughts, in a perverse kind of way, enjoyable. I suspect that's because Greenaway comes up with such odd, intriguing and often disturbing visions. They can almost make you forget what the devil he's getting at. For me, Prospero's Books is a perfect blend of style and story; The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover is an almost perfect match of style and story; The Draughtsman's Contract is an amusing overlay of manners, murder, style and story. But A Zed and Two Noughts? Well, I found it chilly, sometimes uninvolving and often amusing. I enjoyed it, more or less, most of the time. (I occasionally used the fast-forward button). If ten people can tell me what the movie means, beyond the old standbys of death, grief and snails, I'll bet I'll read ten wildly different opinions. That's no particular criticism of either Greenaway or the film.

Galina I knew how strange and unusual Greenaway could be but Zed, I believe could take the cake :). I am not sure what it is all about but I still enjoy the triumvirate Greenaway - Sasha Verny- Michael Nyman. Some ideas and images Greenaway will use in the later "8 1/2 women" and "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover" - especially, the soundtrack. "Dead Ringers" and "Mon oncle d'Amérique" (two beautiful weirdnesses themselves) also come to mind while watching Greenaway's elegant tale of decomposing which is also his meditations about life, death and grief. As in earlier "The Draughtsman's Contract (1982), Greenaway explores the relationship between the close relatives - the twin brothers are in the center of "A Zed & two Noughts". The movie is also a modern retelling of an ancient myth about Leda and Zeus who took the form of a swan and slept with Leda on the same night as her husband, King Tyndareus. Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta.Greenaway considers that 90% of his films one way or another refers to paintings. "A Zed & two Noughts" refers openly and with great admiration to the paintings of Johannes Vermeer van Delft."A Zed & two Noughts" is not easy film to watch, its characters are not sympathetic, it lacks warmth and sentimentality but as always in Greenaway's films, it is a feast for eyes, ears, and for brain.7.5/10

rlcsljo After two brothers lose their wives in a car crash, realize that death is the most fascinating part of life. They constantly photograph animals in a state of decomposition. This celebrates the fact that for every unique life there is a unique death and it should be glorified as is life in all its forms.Greenaway seems the exact opposite of Lynch. Lynch takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary. Greenaway takes the extraordinary and attempts to make it appear ordinary.