Cinematography

Sacha Vierny - Hiroshima mon amour

Hiroshima mon amour is based on a romantic story between the two main characters, a French actress who goes to Japan to make a film and a Japanese man who lives in Hiroshima. The two main facts of the film are the forgetting and the memory with a background of a nuclear war. 
During all the film, it appears two different locations, Nevers, the country of origin of the French woman thanks to the one she can show her feelings telling stories which she lived when she was younger; and Hiroshima. 

The first fifteen minutes of the film have voice-over and there is a mix of images: some when the atomic bomb exploded and some other permanent shots of the two lovers. Here the colors of the images are so different; when the two lovers appear, the lighting is so dark and it produces warmth. On the other hand, there is more whiteness in the images of the disaster, and it makes the film cooler.

If you watch the film, you can see that many of the scenes are joined by fades, sometimes it's a fade-to-black and others are a fading. 
There are many flashbacks during all the film, for example when she is staring at the Japanese man when he is sleeping in the bed, and she suddenly remembers the moment when she saw her first love died. 

In the part of the film when appears the consequences of the explosion of the bomb, the shots are permanent and the camera hardly moves. But in the moment that the film shows the radioactive fallout, the shots begin to change; the camera moves, there are many panoramas and some low and high angles.

The fusion between the picture and the sound it's great; the music reflects the horror suffered in Hiroshima and at the same time it mixes the sweet moments.



How this style could help me in my documentary?

After watching this film, I think that images can speak louder than words, because there isn't script in the part of the pictures of the people who suffered the atomic bomb, but you understand the pain and the sadness of the Japanese citizens. Also, I really like the changes of shot by means of fades, further, I have used them. I consider that it's a great idea to show the images in white and cold colors to represent tough feelings and thanks to it, reach the heart of the audience. The mix of permanent shots and in the opposite, the wide range of high angles almost at the end of the film are an important item to keep in mind.