Woman in Black - Full film analysis

The Woman in Black is a 2012 British horror film directed by James Watkins and written by Jane Goldman, and is based on Susan Hill's novel of the same name. It was produced by Hammer Film Productions. This film is one that does not start conventionally considering it is not a sequel from another film; it starts with what appears to be a soft narrative scene of 3 young girls in pretty dresses playing with dolls in what the audience presumes is a nursery. The 3 girls then stare at each other, then towards a blank empty wall, this is where the scene starts to build suspense as the audience is unaware of what is going to happen. Without saying a word to each other the stand up, hold hands and make their way towards the window, where they open it and jump out. There is then a moment of silence, to emphasise the shock of the event, followed by a scream, presumably from whoever found them. The film then makes a transition back to softer scenes again after confusing the audience with a violent opening. We then cut to the main character of the film Arthur Kipps, a lawyer, being given a stern talking too by his boss. It’s then cut to a shot of Arthur saying goodbye to his son, Joseph, who hands him a picture he had drawn of himself, his father and his mother in the form of an angel in the sky. Arthur asks his son why he looks so sad in the picture and Joseph replies ‘you just are’. To gain background information on Arthur and his family we see flashbacks of his sons birth during his train journey. In these flash backs we discover that Arthurs wife – Josephs mother – dies whilst giving birth to Joseph. When Arthur reaches the town he had to travel to for work we instantly see things take a dark and eerie tone. He stays in the attic of the local inn, a room which we are already familiar with from the start of the film where the 3 girls kill themselves, immediately foreboding something bad happening. Despite some being during the day, the scenes all appear very dark and run down, adding to the tense, suspense building effect. When Arthur first travels to the mansion in which he has to do his work he is told he has to stay there later than planned due to the tide, almost immediately after entering the house Arthur is startled by some ravens and then looks out of a window seeing a dark human like shadow across the garden, connoting that he is being watched or followed. When he looks out once again there is no one there, so he goes out to investigate. A sequence of quick transitions create the feeling that something bad is going to happen, but it is only the taxi driver coming to pick him up. It is when Arthur goes to the police station to attempt to report what he thinks is trespassing on the mansion that bad events begin to happen. When he is told that no one would trespass onto the mansion, 3 young children burst into the police station, one of which is very sick and appears to be dying. Before Arthur could even begin to help the young girl dies in his arms. Back at the lodge that evening the lodgers wife has a fit and has to be sedated, and her husband tells Arthur that there are many superstitions in the town. When Arthur comes across a girl who is imprisoned in a room who tells him to ‘leave her alone as he killed Victoria’ – the girl who died in his arms – we become aware that the towns superstitions towards the mansion which Arthur is investigating are very extreme. The next time Arthur returns to the mansion he decides to stay the night, which immediately leads the audience to believe that something bad will happen. It is later that evening that Arthur finds a box with the name ‘Nathaniel Drablow’ written on it – which we later discover is the woman in blacks son’s name. Arthur shortly sees the woman in blacks dark eyes which startles him. While he is looking through documents and photos a dark shadow passes over and the dog he has been lent starts to bark and follow the shadow, so Arthur does the same and is taken to the tombstone of Nathaniel. The shot then looks back towards the house and in one of the top windows Arthur sees the woman in black stood there briefly, so he hurries up to the room to investigate but finds nothing there. When he looks out of the window himself we see her face flash up over his shoulder, he does not see her himself but he feels an eerie presence. After more investigating through documents he discovers that the woman in black is a lady called Jennet and her son is Nathaniel, who she had to give up due to being ‘mentally unfit’. He then discovers that all of the marsh surrounding the mansion is where Nathaniel died, and his body was never found. When Arthur falls asleep that evening we see quick transitions of the dark figure getting closer and closer to him, but luckily the dog starts barking and the ghostly figure is scared off. Arthur then goes to try and open a room that has always been locked but finds it wide open, with a rocking chair in that appears to be moving itself, for a split second the audience can see the woman in black rocking herself in the chair. Underneath loose wallpaper Arthur finds writing in blood spelling out ‘YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HIM’ which the audience presume the woman in black wrote, talking about her son who died. Then outside he sees the faces of many children who have died due to the woman in blacks curse. Hastily Arthur runs back into the main part of the mansion, but then the shots speed up and he gets chased by the woman and black and encloses himself in a room, but her son then rises up from the bed. He manages to leave the mansion and finds Bentley, the man who has come to pick him up. On his journey home he comes across another suspicious and coincidental event, a local man. Jerome’s, house is on fire and the daughter is nowhere to be seen. In an attempt to help Arthur runs into the house and then sees the young girl being prompted by the Woman In Black, she then sets herself on fire without a wince. It is then that Bentley decides to inform Arthur of the story of the woman in black, how she makes herself present in young children, forcing them to kill themselves in spite of her own son being lost. Arthur and Bentley decide that to end the woman in blacks spiteful mourning they have to find the body of Nathaniel and reunite him with his mother, which is exactly what they did. A series of scary and tense events happen as the woman in black discovers what they have done, setting the audience on edge, and after the burial of Nathaniel with his mother it appears that she still can’t forgive. Days later Bentley takes Arthur to the train station where he is reunited with his son and the nurse who is taking care of him, while the nurse goes to get train tickets home Arthur and Bentley talk and Joseph lets go of his grip to his father’s hand. Arthur then sees the woman in black in train station and his eyes dart to his son, who is now on the train track, in attempt to save him he leaps onto the train track himself, covering his son. Bentley sees the faces of all the dead children on the train and through the gaps of the wagon he sees the woman in blacks figure. The scene fades up from white and Arthur and Joseph are still gripping tightly to each other, only now they are in a completely empty train station. This shot is very misleading for the audience, as at first we presume that they had managed to avoid the train and they were alive, but we soon realise that the emptiness and calmness of the scene is too good to be true. Stella, Arthurs deceased wife, welcomes them and hand in hand they walk along the train track.