From the opening scenes (wherein Michael Sullivan Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin) rides his bike through town, sells some newspapers and returns home), it’s clear that the viewer is in for something special. What appears to be, on the surface at least, a somewhat subdued title sequence has an ulterior motive. The real purpose of this sequence is to firmly entrench the audience in Michael’s point of view. This is his story. The audience sees what he sees and hears what he hears, experiencing the world as he does. That is, until he hides in the back of the family car so that he can tag along on one of his father’s late night ‘missions.’
In the subsequent scene at the warehouse, everything is shown from Michael’s point of view. The confrontation between Connor Rooney (Daniel Craig) and Finn McGovern is filmed just as Michael sees it, through a hole at the base of a wall. But once the shooting starts and Michael witnesses his father (Tom Hanks) shoot Finn’s henchmen, the perspective suddenly shifts. Seeing his father kill another man is such a profoundly traumatic event that it not only changes Michael’s life forever, it also alters the entire structure of the film. The effect of this shift in perspective, though subtle, heightens the emotional impact of that moment in a way that is only possible because, prior to that, the audience spent every minute of the film firmly in Michael’s point of view.
But, again, the effect is subtle, a trait shared with the rest of the film. Though it involves multiple murders and some very dark twists and turns, Road to Perdition is not a film that wears its emotions on its sleeve. There are no high-speed car chases or knockdown drag-out brawls. It’s a controlled, almost rigid film that relies on much less demonstrative means of eliciting an emotional response. But when every action, word and movement in the film means something, even the smallest gestures carry a lot of weight. Eventually, as these small moments begin to accumulate, the film earns a far greater emotional impact than would be achieved by a fistfight or a shouting match.
The stately precision of the film is only interrupted twice. In both instances, handheld cameras are employed to draw a parallel between the two father-son relationships at the center of the film. In the first such scene, John Rooney chastises and physically assaults his son Connor because he has disobeyed him. In the second scene, Mike Sullivan yells at his son Michael for not immediately doing as he says. Both scenes, obviously, are about the frustration a father feels when his son doesn’t do as he would like. But more than that, these scenes also mark a turning point in these two relationships. Although John Rooney begins the scene by berating Connor, he ends it by hugging him close. Without actually saying it, he’s acknowledging that, if forced to, he would choose Connor over Mike, a decision that ultimately costs him his life. In the other scene, Mike begins the confrontation by commanding Michael to listen to him from now on. But by the end of the scene, Mike has realized that there was much more to Michael’s disobedience than he thought. And from that point on, he makes his son a partner in their endeavors in a way that allows Michael to eventually become the man Mike wanted him to be. These two scenes are where the father-son relationships around which the plot turns are solidified. By using a handheld camera in both instances, Mendes links the scenes together, asking the viewer to compare and contrast them and, through those scenes, the central relationships themselves.
Clearly, Road to Perdition is a film with a lot on its mind. But the pleasure to be had in watching the film has as much to do with the beauty and intricacy of the images as it does with the thematic elements. Take, for instance, the way the film pings off of our collective memory of that period in America. Almost no one now living can personally attest to what life looked like in the early 1930s. A modern audience’s ideas of that period are refracted through the paintings of artists like Edward Hopper and the photographs of people like Weegee. And so Mendes composes shots that look like Hopper paintings and has one of his characters take photos akin to Weegee’s. Whether or not this accurately depicts the period is beside the point. It gets at what we think the period was like, making the film resonant more than it would if it were merely historically accurate.
Mendes also continuously uses the visual frame to comment upon the action and the relationships in the film. For instance, after Michael has witnessed his father kill three men at the warehouse, Mike tries to explain himself as best he can. The scene takes place in the car and is shot in such a way that the column of steel that divides the windshield from the passenger window draws a line directly between them. This is a subtle visual cue pointing out the split that has just formed in their relationship. Later in the film, after Mike has completed his quest for vengeance, he returns to the hotel where his son is waiting for him. During this shot, the frame is neatly divided in half with the entrance hall on one side and the bedroom on the other. On the left stands Mike, representing the life they used to have and the violence upon which that life was built. On the right sits Michael, representing a new start both to their relationship and their lives. By crossing from the left to the right of the frame, Mike is making the choice to finally leave the old life behind and embrace the new life.
Those sorts of directorial flourishes are present throughout the film, deepening and enhancing the viewing experience even if the audience is never consciously aware of them.
Another visual cue used throughout the film to great effect is the way water is equated with death. Established early on in a funeral at the Rooney house where the body is packed in melting ice, the symbol reappears every time a character is killed on screen. Connor murders Finn McGovern while Michael watches in the pouring rain. Mike shoots Tony Calvino in the back of his speakeasy while water drips from a leaky pipe overhead. Connor murders Peter and Annie while she is toweling him off after a bath. Mike shoots John Rooney and his henchmen in a torrential downpour and kills Connor Rooney as he sits in a bath. And Mike is himself killed as he watches his son play with a dog on the shore of Lake Michigan.
Mendes is hardly alone in using water as a metaphor for death (see also: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). But what’s interesting about its use in Road to Perdition is that, by the end of the film, it has been repeated so many times that the audience has unconsciously come to associate water with death. Thus an overwhelming sense of foreboding accompanies the shot of Mike standing in his sister-in-law’s house watching the gently lapping waves on the shore of the lake. There’s nothing in the way this moment is filmed or in the music or even in the look on Mike’s face that would indicate anything bad is about to happen. And yet, because water has been present at every death in the film, the audience can’t help but feel afraid. The real trick of it is that they probably don’t even know why. Through careful and rigorous use of this metaphor, Mendes has provoked a genuine emotional reaction without having to resort to any of the more conventional methods filmmakers usually employ (ominous music, unbalanced compositions, etc.). And because of that, this moment catches the viewer off guard and unprepared, affecting them more than if he had used one of the more traditional methods.
Manipulation of the visual medium in such a complex and multi-faceted way marks Road to Perdition as a uniquely accomplished piece of filmmaking. That Mendes achieves that level of visual sophistication (on only his second outing as director, no less) while also maintaining a sense of forward momentum in the film is remarkable. Add to that Conrad Hall’s breathtaking cinematography and you have a film that deserves consideration for best film of the last decade. It’s the sort of film that alternately enthralls and impresses, both a masterpiece of the craft and a damn fine piece of entertainment. There are any number of films that do one or the other but precious few that manage both. And for that, seven years (and a dozen screenings) after that first viewing, Road to Perdition has unquestionably earned the use of the M-word.
