Greenaway at his finest, pretentious to some viewers, his film on grief and decay stayed with me for many weeks and the final flash photography with snails was a triumph.Nyman created some wonderful pieces though neither artist quite surpasses their work on The Draughtmans contract in my humble opinion (I've yet to see The Falls), though still visually stunning this remains a sometimes darkly comic but ultimately unsettling piece - highly recommended.I am usually eager to see Greenaway films again and again and this is no exception, but it is "talking to me" from it's first viewing 6 months hence. When my mind is finally starved of this feast and I am ready for a new perspective on it I will sit down and indulge in it again.

I first saw this film when it came to British cinemas in 1985. Now, in 2010, I've just seen it again. 25 years ago, as an impressionable film school student, I was both baffled and fascinated by its multi-layered imagery and anarchic themes. Greenaway was my hero then for he had mastery over cinematic form and a unique style that I had never seen before. Added to Michael Nyman's powerful, pulsating music, this film gave me the shivers and also left me breathless. Looking at the film today, it seems barren of emotion (intentional) and laboured. I struggled to sit through the film, and luckily, as I was watching it at home, I could get up at intervals to make tea, have a cigarette, and look out the window. I made the effort to watch Greenaway's patronising director's commentary and 'introduction' to the film, but it still left me with the feeling that I had largely wasted two hours. I may have learnt something about sumptuous photography and resonating soundtracks, but A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS left me cold, sickened and bored. In 1985 this film may have caused a stir, being made in the negativity and economic/cultural stagnation of Thatcher's Conservative Britain. I remember that was not a good period to live through. A film like this might have caused a sensation among cinema-goers, as it is certainly original. But that is its saving grace.

To those of you who think this is an intelligent film, I say wake up and smell the rotting carrion. This flick is about as intelligent and subtle as a suicide bomb. There are a lot of ostensibly clever puns, but Greenaway feels the need to smash us over the head with them, like a bad comedian who keeps repeating the punchline with "did you get it? did you get it??" Take the title for example. A zed and two noughts. Mildly clever. But Greenaway feels the need to bash us in the face with it, with (literally) neon signs saying ZOO throughout the flick. Peter, I think anyone with a heartbeat gets it, OK? Similarly, he grosses us out to no end with disgusting rotting corpses. Again this is his way of saying "Gross, eh? Are you grossed out? Are you grossed out? How bout I throw in a penis? Now are you grossed out? A naked fat chick?" This is not cinema. This is not intelligent expression. It's abstract, visceral "potty art". People who think farts are funny will think Greenaway is intelligent. Avoid this film, and while you're at it, avoid all Greenaway films. They're all the same.

A Zed and Two Noughts (or Zoo) is Greenaway's best film. Made during the transition between his early experimental short films and his later more narrative (and more celebrated) ones, his free flowing structure is at its best here, fresh, witty and cerebral (some would also say pedantic). In later films, one has the feeling that Greenaway has try to go back to the style set by Zoo, but the results (like in 8 1/2 women) are almost unwatchable. The plot: two biologists twins working in a zoo, specialized in studying the putrefaction of animals, lose their wives in a car accident. They hook up with a strange woman who lost her leg in that accident. Meanwhile, there are references to Vermeer throughout (what does this has to do with zoology, only Greenaway knows), speeded up shots of real rotting animals, Michael Nyman's hypnotic score, and also a girl who learns the alphabet through giant letters that are linked with live animals (for example, z is for zebra, as in a children's book). Deliberately non naturalistic, Greenaway makes from this strange melange a very compelling movie, though undoubtedly very hard to take for some.