Peter Greenaway’s A Zed & Two Noughts, recently released on Blu-ray disc by the BFI, proves that the high-definition format isn’t just for blockbusters: it could have been invented for the British director’s first collaboration with the legendary cinematographer Sacha Vierny, a partnership which made explicit Greenaway’s debt to French auteur Alain Resnais and introduced the meticulous colour-coding that would characterise later films such as The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover.
Greenaway’s hallmarks (Flemish painting, copious nudity) abound, but he also finds time to consider whether zebras are white with black stripes or black with white stripes (a question also pondered, and unanswered, more recently in Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep). Moreover, A Zed & Two Noughts is likely to remain the only time Joss Ackland and Jim Davidson share the screen.
The new edition comes with the usual commentary and interviews, but more importantly includes The Sea in their Blood, a half-hour study of the British coastline Greenaway made during his time at the Central Office of Information. Rarely seen and unavailable elsewhere, it’s a typical early combination of deadpan narration, static camera and endless lists of quirky statistics.
However tempting the extras, this is not the film to convert a Greenaway sceptic. I’m not convinced such a work exists. And zebras are black with white stripes, in case you were wondering.
A Zed & Two Noughts is available now on Blu-ray.
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