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This scene brings the first part of the movie to an end. Geneviève and Guy have fallen in love with each other despite Geneviève’s mother’s disapproval. Guy has to leave Cherbourg for his military service in Algeria.

This situation, told through song, is that of two lovers parting company at the Cherbourg train station. It happens over two instances. The first is at the station café, where she can’t stay inside and let him go. She goes to join him on the platform.

At the point where the train leaves Demy makes a radical choice to keep the point of view of the person who is leaving and to film Catherine Deneuve becoming smaller and smaller in the shot.

To film the train leaving the filmmaker put a technically complex yet subtle set up into operation. The camera isn’t actually on the train as it leaves, but on a track system running in parallel to the train, which enables him to get both the train and the platform in shot, allowing him to follow the train’s movement, so much so that we assume that the camera is onboard as it pulls out of the station, then the camera stops so that we can see the sad image of the girl on the platform as a little dot far away on the platform.