A Zed And Two Noughts

We've reviewed some weird films in these pages before, but writer/director Peter Greenaway's bids fair to become one of the strangest visions the recent cinema has produced. Reminiscent, in many respects, of Greenaway's earlier effort The Draughtman's Contract, this film--where style takes precedence over substance-tells the bizarre story of twin zoo employees whose wives die in a freak accident when a swan crosses the path of the car in which they are riding. The sole survivor of the crash, Alba (Andrea Ferreol) becomes the lodestone for the brother's grief (and love). The brothers, Oswald and Oliver (Brian and Eric Deacon) approach the meaning of life and death from different directions. One watches old biology films which trace the evolution of life, while the other uses time-lapse photography to observe decay (beginning with an apple, and moving up the great chain of being). By film's end, the brothers engage in the ultimate horrifying and darkly comic experiment. This is a very bare outline of a movie that's chock full of fantastic (and sometimes repulsive) imagery and ideas. Letterboxed, to preserve the wide-screen shots which Greenaway continually uses, Z.O.O. is unrated primarily for frontal male nudity, and carries a haunting soundtrack, very much like Philip Glass's music, from Michael Nyman. Dirty Dancing it is not, but this danse macabre for the intellectually morbid is recommended for those who want to take a chance.