During the 1986 International Rotterdam Film Festival I attended the Dutch premiere of A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS (UK/Netherlands: Peter Greenaway, 1985). As history records it, the film left behind a bewildered and amazed audience. The opening credit scene gives so much visual and auditory information that the spectator is unable to “enter” the film. That may explain why many spectators talk about the film in spatial metaphors: the film was “beyond” them, or they felt “left out.” Often mentioned in reviews of the film – and something Peter Greenaway seems to be proud of – is that watching the film is like seeing three films at once. But that is not the only peculiarity of the film I noticed upon seeing the work. What really struck me was that the film resembled the Dutch film DEWITTEWAAN / THEWHITE MADNESS / THEWHITE DELUSION (Netherlands: Adriaan Ditvoorst, 1984). Noticing this resemblance kept my attention focused on the screen.

In this article I intend to describe this film experience as a key to understanding the secret passion of the cinephile. It is not my intention to prove that Peter Greenaway was really influenced by DE WITTE WAAN. Actually I think it is, for reasons to be revealed later, even better that this remains ambiguous. The only “fact” this chapter takes as a starting point, is that the films share similarities, for everyone to notice. In both films an older woman is involved in a car accident, partly recovers, lives on but is fully committed to dying anyway. Without any apparent reason, both women almost seem to welcome death. The woman in DE WITTE WAAN (played by Pim Lambeau) confuses her own life with that of the roles she played as an actress in Tsjechow's plays (The Cherry Orchard in particular). Alba Bewick (Andréa Ferréol) in A ZOO confuses her own life with that of a woman in a Vermeer painting, and is even persuaded to have her legs amputated, so she looks more like her.

There are striking resemblances with the other characters as well. In DE WITTE WAAN, two brother actors, Jules and Hans Croiset, play the father, the friend, and the driver of the car that caused the accident.