Rating: 
Summary: Grim Death Psycho Study
Review: A bizarre low-key study of twin brothers obsessed with death and decay, this Peter Greenaway film tackles some issues later covered by Cronenberg in "Dead Ringers". The time-lapse photography scenes of animal bodies decaying (including maggots, etc.) are interspersed throughout the film creating a dark mood to the strange and somewhat tragically funny proceedings of 2 brothers on a downward spiral of insanity. This was the first Greenaway film I saw in the late 80's and, although it has many of the standard techniques and elements Greenaway used in his subsequent films (which I am not much a fan of), it has a uniqueness of its own and I would recommend it to indie film fans and even horror buffs looking for some headier material. Even if you're not real big on Greenaway, you may want to check this one out. The DVD is a simple package from Fox-Lorber (of course), but the image is sharp and it's letterboxed.
Rating:
Summary: Grim Death Psycho Study
Review: A bizarre low-key study of twin brothers obsessed with death and decay, this Peter Greenaway film tackles some issues later covered by Cronenberg in "Dead Ringers". The time-lapse photography scenes of animal bodies decaying (including maggots, etc.) are interspersed throughout the film creating a dark mood to the strange and somewhat tragically funny proceedings of 2 brothers on a downward spiral of insanity. This was the first Greenaway film I saw in the late 80's and, although it has many of the standard techniques and elements Greenaway used in his subsequent films (which I am not much a fan of), it has a uniqueness of its own and I would recommend it to indie film fans and even horror buffs looking for some headier material. Even if you're not real big on Greenaway, you may want to check this one out. The DVD is a simple package from Fox-Lorber (of course), but the image is sharp and it's letterboxed.
Rating: 
Summary: my favorite Greenaway film
Review: A mesmerizing examination of grief and decay. Two brothers, scientists, struggle to confront the death of their wives. Surrendering to their intellects, they embark on a study of physical decay. At first, their aloofness and sangfroid are somewhat baffling. They are difficult characters for a viewer to relate to, a deliberate move by Greenaway to create one of his trademark slightly surreal worlds. They seem to be trying to reason themselves out of their loss, but in a manner in which we cannot quite believe two people would. Little by little this alternate reality of Greenway's is brought into sharp focus as a view onto our own. The brother's actions become more strange and pathetic. Their humanity, and more importantly their fallibility - spiritual, emotion, and physical - is exposed. By the end of the film we have a truer, albeit inconclusive, sense of what they have lost.
Greenaway's juxtaposition of educational and documentary footage with the dramatically bold and lush stylistics used to tell the story seems like the perfect foil to the film's central meditation on science and human nature. This culminates in the darkly humorous final scene. He affirms the inescapable connectedness between humanity and nature, as the brothers' last great exposition (for these are not formal experiments, the results always being known beforehand) - the culmination of their intellectual lives - is quickly undone. Short-circuited by the very elements they tried to document. The visual beauty and use of sombre and stirring music are unforgettable. Greenaway has orchestrated an undertaking of sumptuous breadth and scope.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly abstract, bizarre study of life/death/decay
Review: A visually striking film focusing on the zoological fascination that two brothers have on birth, life, death and decay. Not the meaning of life and death but the physical properties of existence and non-existence. Although there is some male and female frontal nudity in this film, there are no sex scenes as such. The dialogue vibrates between being witty and tedious. A slow moving film proceeding towards an inevitable conclusion. There are only a few people to whom I could recommend this film.
Rating:
Summary: A classic. Though obviously has limited appeal!
Review: A Zed & Two Noughts is a great, "arty" movie with some crazy speeded-up visuals of decaying animals and an absolutely brilliant soundtrack by Michael Nyman. It's the kind of movie that you see once and never forget what you've seen and heard afterwards.One more thing: I just wanted to point out that the English entertainer ("blue" stand-up comedian, sitcom star & game-show host) Jim Davidson stars as the zoo keeper in this movie. For anybody who knows of Jim, this is possibly the most unexpected thing he has ever been in. Whenever I watch this film, I'm always left wondering how he got involved with such a surreal, dark production like Z-O-O...
Rating:
Summary: Origins of Life, Vermeer, symmetry. ZOO.... and OOZe
Review: Everytime I see A Zed and Two Noughts I catch a phrase that I missed the double meaning on the previous time I watched it. Perhaps the fascination of watching bodies decay clouds my perceptions. Perhaps the beauty of the photographic images by Sacha Vierny, The arresting music by Michael Nyman, or the insistent guiding hand of Director Peter Greenaway (who is creating his own cinematic alphabet here, later to be explored in his subsequent films, and drawing upon his wonderful short films and early opus The Falls) is too much for one viewing to contain! Or perhaps it is getting wrapped up in the same mystery that consumes the twin zoologists. Why death, and why a car accident involving a pregnant Swan on Swann's way, no less??!! Speaking of doubles, you have the twin brothers, their two dead wives, the two legless lovers, the doctor who is a descendant of the master forger (a great faker must be praised I guess!) Van Meegeren, himself a double (dubious) of the painter Vermeer,or the fact that there are Vermeers in the film, and they are doubled on camera in certain shots, and more and more...
Is this a waste of film? DEFINITELY NOT. You go into a film with the knowledge you have up to that point, and sometimes a film challenges you to rise to the occasion as opposed to talking down to an audience. This is not for people who think watching a movie means some quiet time and maybe a laugh or two. This is a film where you are constantly challenged to make observations and opinions based on what you are shown. There is a thesis here, and I am not sure whether it is an artistic thesis, a scientific thesis, a moral and ethical thesis, or all or none of the above, but what I do know is that this is one of the most challenging pieces of moving image I have ever seen (I have only seen about 1,600 films in my life, so I admit I have not seen that much), and it is easier to walk away from it then to stay and appreciate the rich complexities of knowledge this film draws from. The choice is yours but I highly recommend it for knowledge seekers.
The DVD is of great quality, and except for the lack of extras (I would have LOVED to have seen the trailer for this film), it is a worthy purchase.
Rating:
Summary: Exquisite & Depraved
Review: Filmed at the Rotterdam zoo, this is a classic Greenaway film and, yes, it's visually stunning (as many have observed). It seems obsessively concerned with symmetry as a means of both annoying and captivating the audience (which in a Greenaway film is ALWAYS a voyeuristic audience). A typical film by Peter Greenaway makes many people squirm in their seats. The zoo of the title (Z-O-O) is literally a place inhabited by both animals and humans notably and insanely deprived and damaged, the latter also exquisitely depraved and caught up in a web of deceit and slow-moving carnage. One is reminded of Dostoevsky's concept of hyper-consciousness (a sickly consciousness) as the characters slowly descend into the type of soup Greenaway excells at preparing; a delicious, malicious and toxic stew, one part debauchery to two parts neurosis. Typical Greenaway fare? Not quite. In this film alone he has mastered the intricate webwork of plot, score and set while illustrating various abnormal conditions induced ostensibly by the close commingling of humans and caged wildlife. His macabre sense of humor is evident in the visual and monstrous passages where decay and amputation unsettle the strict and unrelenting symmetry of the sumptuous signature sets. The repetitive score - a minimalist thing by Michael Nyman - is as annoying as is it enchanting. The increasingly disturbing quest of the various misfits that inhabit the zoo - the film - slowly builds to a surreal tableau where a surgeon tries to recreate the pleasant quietism of Vermeer's paintings, twin zoologists collect and photograph decaying animals (harvested from the zoological collection), a crazed administrator(?) sets up a pregnant paramour (hitherto pornographic priestess) with a zebra, and a legless woman (victim of the opening car crash) plots her own end after giving birth to twins fathered by the twin zoologist brothers who are, in turn, obsessed with becoming siamese twins (with the help of the mad surgeon). It is all too much to absorb and Greenaway has spun such a fantastic tale not to dazzle the mind so much as the eye as he works his way through an abecedaria of zoological mischief - a treatise of sorts on the evolution of obsession and the onset of dementia.
Rating: 
Summary: repugnant movie
Review: Greenaway pretends to be postmodern in this film and he falls in bad taste. "A Zed and Two Noughts" is a vain visual exercise. Director resorts a takes from silent movie age. No zooms or travelings. He splits Marco Ferreri for using the monstruosity and grotesque like topics of discourse, not counting the depth for Ferreri. This film is a parade of decay and horror that will disgust viewers. Which is the objective? I don't know. Greenaway suffers of several defects in contemporary cinema. First, we fail to recognize values and thoughts of characters and can't know what happen in the screem. It dispairs. Greenaway stays in one place and either can relate different being aspects. This movie lacks of utopy (fault in postmodern art). I couldn't understand "A Zed and Two Noughts". Only it repugnanted me. Is a abstract work? Any work for Buñuel or Godard is upper.Visual exercise? Movies like "In the White City" for Alain Tanner or "Under the Scorpio Sign" for Tavianni Brothers are better experimental pieces."A Zed a two Noughts" is movie that goes to nowhere.
Rating:
Summary: A real head scrambler
Review: I can't wait to see this video as it's been a long time since I saw this flick. I want to see if I still think the same way about it. Back then, I thought it was an all-time great, but I sure remembered having my thoughts scrambled. It's a nature-of-life questioning, clue-dropping, self-referential piece. The images and plot relationships to the images -- all bizarre -- are a constant puzzler. It was the kind of movie I liked, we'll see what happens when I see it again on video after the years have passed.
Rating:
Summary: Z--O--O......
Review: If you are not a Peter Greenaway disciple, this film will leave you cold or confused or both. If you are familiar with his films, then this one is a must. As usual, his subject matter is decadent to say the least---death and decay (the latter being the most significant) and his approach is purely cinematic. His characters are by and large afflicted in one way or another with idiosyncrasies that range from the pathetic to the outlandish. But it is his visual approach to storytelling that really challenges. In this film, twin brothers are obsessed with watching things decay. A local zoo provides plenty of opportunity to explore their voyeuristic quests. They film (using time-lapse photography) fruit then dead animals as they slowly rot and turn to dust. A bizarre sub-plot features a woman who ends up having both legs amputated and finally wants to become one of their "experiments". The brothers eventually decide to become one of their own film subjects. To grasp a viewing experience like this, one has to be ready for often disorienting symbolism in colors, objects, decorating motifs and photographic images (as well as generous nudity) to grasp it in full. I cannot completely describe this film---it has to be seen to be appreciated as most of his other work does. Maybe see it a couple of times ...his films justify the time spent. But usually they are not for the easily turned-off as this one certainly isn't. Greenaway qualifies as an "art" director and there is really no one quite like him. His special touches are evident here that distinguish him from other off-beat directors. His films also carry an oddly sardonic sense of humor that sometimes helps to offset the often mind-boggling action and imagery. He is a modern day artist and his films are in a league of their own. Maybe it should be called the "Greenaway genre".
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