Analysis Of Neil Breen's Pass Thru

There’s a moment in the middle of Neil Breen’s Pass Thru where the DIY auteur, just before insouciantly cleansing the earth of 300 million people, says “this is my reality, not a false human illusion”. Welcome to the cinema of Neil Breen, movies that are on another plane of existence. Only Neil Breen could make a film where the audience winds up rooting for the murder of 4% of the global population.

Breen, for those uninitiated, is the writer/producer/director behind four of the strangest, lo-fi, avant garde films to have been made this century in Double Down(2005), I Am Here….Now(2009), Fateful Findings(2013), and Pass Thru(2016). Moreover, and bear with me, Breen’s roles on set include - cinematographer, editor, set designer, casting director, location scout, VFX director, makeup artist, musical director, production manager, prop maker, and caterer. Yes, caterer. If you want a job done right, best do it yourself. So this is a list indicative

In 1954 François Truffaut, in ‘Cahiers du Cinéma’, elaborated on this idea further with his essay ‘Les Politique des Auteurs’. He argued that ownership in a film, or the creative voice that drives a movie, is always inextricably linked to the director. As such, when looking at any director’s body of work there will be recurring themes, stylistic trends, and preoccupations that define these movies as belonging solely to the director. Accordingly, there are never “good or bad movies, only good and bad directors”. Greatness in a movie is a measure of originality and vision. Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris, in his Notes on Auteur Theory (1962), refined this concept by applying a visual aid of three concentric circles to help identify an auteur - the outer circle being technique, the middle circle, personal style, and the inner circle, interior