Genre:
The sub-genre of The Women in Black is supernatural because it centres
on a ghost of a woman who has the power to make children kill themselves. She
believes that none of the adults in the village she lives deserve to have
children because her son drowned in the marshes at a very young age.
Supernatural films often create a lot of suspense throughout the film, and the
women in black does just this. It is a film that makes you jump and the
audience is in an almost constant state of anticipation. The plot in The Women
in Black contains a mysterious event that has happened in the past to the ghost
and the lead character (Daniel Radcliff) is on a quest to find out the truth.
Supernatural horrors are quite often set in a familiar location, such as a home
to create a recognisable fear for the audience, the Women in Black mainly takes
place in a house and the beginning sequence shows three little girls playing
with dolls inside their bedroom.
Form and Style of Opening:

Film language- telling the story:
Mise-en-scene: Props are provided to create a stereotypical view of
children playing with their dolls. Children’s toys can often be seen as scary
often because they bring back old child hood memory of being scared of toys
because of children’s wild imaginations, especially dolls are seen to be
spooky. In the opening the dolls are used to create this recognizable fear for
the audience, it is very conventional to supernatural-horror. Non-verbal
language allows the audience to see something is not quite right because of the
contrast between the girls playing with their dolls and smiling and their
serious facial expressions when they see the women.
Camera: The establishing shot shows a close up of a teapot being poured
into a teacup, there is nothing coming out of the teapot immediately allowing
the audience to recognize that it is imaginary and that it’s children pouring
this imaginary tea. The camera stays very still throughout the clip placing the
audience with the idea of death. The stillness also allows us to focus on the
children who are the main center rolls of the first scene because of what’s
going to happen to them.

Sound: The music used throughout the whole opening is very chilling, the
sound is a similar effect to a music box which is parallel to the little children
because they in the past children have used music boxes to allow them to settle
down. It also get’s louder throughout until the girls jump out the window, this
creates tension for the audience. Dialogue is used to show the fear and
unhappiness of the children’s mother when they jump out of the window, she
shouts “my babies” allowing us to see she’s sad but also implying to the fact
they are her children. Also the scream from the women is very conventional of
horror, portraying fright.
Narrative
Representation and Ideologies
It shows upper class girls dressed in rich Victorian clothes, who characterize
a ghost-like feel which their white completions. Also, the vulnerability of
these girls is emphasized by the music, and the fact they are so easily controlled
by this ghost woman. The vulnerability is also shown when the mother screams
because the children were obviously apart from their mother, which depicts
defenselessness. Also, because they are little girls they reach the stereotype
of them being weak and accessible to this ghost.
Media Audiences
The target audience of The Women in Black is young adults, because they enjoy
supernatural horror and also it was previously a book aimed at young adults.
However, it could also be aimed at teenagers because the star of the film is
Daniel Radcliff, the star of Harry Potter and teenagers grew up with him as children.
The dominant reading of this text is that something is controlling these children to want to jump out of the window and kill themselves, but the oppositional could be that the girls are just killing themselves by choice because they are unhappy.
The dominant reading of this text is that something is controlling these children to want to jump out of the window and kill themselves, but the oppositional could be that the girls are just killing themselves by choice because they are unhappy.
What ideas could we take from the text?
-We could take the idea that everything is very synchronized to create the fear
for the audience and allow them to see something is controlling the situation
-We could take the idea of creepy dolls to enhance the horror
-We could take the idea of creepy dolls to enhance the horror
This is better in terms of responding to all sections, however you still need to look at narrative.
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