A Zed and Two Noughts

Peter Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts (1985) is a meticulous study on the effects of loss and trauma filtered through scientific examination. In our twin protagonists’ obsessive effort to maintain control over the uncontrollable effects of life and the natural world, they compartmentalize the trauma they suffer when they lose their respective wives in a freak car accident with a white swan. Inasmuch as they find solace in their work, turning to an obsessive examination on the study of decay in animals, they likewise find a counterpart in the woman who was driving the car which killed their spouses.

Among the many intriguing aspects of Greenaway’s film is the intellectualism inherent to this study, since this is a decidedly cerebral film. The cold and analytical nature of the twins is echoed by Greenaway’s composition process. That’s not to say, however, that there is a lack of humor in the project. The abundant humor comes from the distancing that the twins project onto life and their tragedy, disassociating themselves from their wives’ deaths to such an extent that the lack they feel foregrounds their existence. Even their attempts to adopt the driver’s young daughter are met with cold ambivalence, emphasizing the extreme paradox of the film: the twins seek out life almost mechanically in an effort to distill death of its horror.

Yet Greenaway also holds a mirror to the quiet acceptance that we all have toward death, inquiring whether the scientific repudiation that they’re attempting is not, on some level, a more humane approach to the concept of death. That is, the absurdity of passive acceptance is magnified by the twin’s acute fanaticism to disarm the passivity we hold toward death. The studies on decay and decomposition become a Nietzschean principle of repudiating this acceptance as a way for the weak to submit to the great and awesome power of that which they don’t understand. The brothers, however, seek to comprehend death intimately and so to deny the passiveness held toward it.

This all culminates in the obsessive compulsion of the film’s finale, which Greenaway builds toward with immaculate precision. The force of this effect is undeniable, and grounds the film in a final expression of tragedy. This is an incredible vision of obsession and the obsessive way in which we come to terms with the world.

A Zed and Two Noughts: 10/10