A car collides with a swan outside a zoo. Two women passengers die but the driver Alba survives with a leg amputation. Obsessed with the accident, the zoologist husbands of the dead women—twins Oliver and Oswald—become fascinated by the processes of decay and embark on a strange affair with Alba.

As perversely, teasingly comic as it is shocking, A Zed and Two Noughts is full of surprises. At once a self-reflexive intellectual puzzle and a wickedly dark comedy, the film marked the beginning of Peter Greenaway’s two-decade collaboration with Last Year at Marienbad cinematographer Sacha Vierny.