A car collides with a swan outside Rotterdam Zoo. Two women passengers die and the driver, Alba Bewick, has to have her leg amputated. Obsessed with the accident, the husbands of the dead women - twin-brother zoologists Oswald and Oliver - become fascinated by the processes of decay.
A Zed and Two Noughts is a visceral and cerebral treat, as dead animals decompose to the jokey rhythms of Michael Nyman, symmetry is elevated beyond obsession, and Sacha Vierny's cinematography pays homage to Vermeer. Full of surprises and magnificent conundrums, Greenaway's third feature is as perversely comic and teasing as it is shocking.
Filmography: Nightwatching (2007), The Tulse Luper Suitcases (2002-4), 8 1/2 Women (1999), The Pillow Book (1996), Prospero's Books (1991), The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover (1989).