The Photography in this film is spectacular. The colors are so lifelike and vivid and far exceed the success of creating naturalist but yet still rich colors that Pressburger and Powell used in A Matter of Life and Death. Again you see how color can infer narrative. The red hues around sister ruth when she starts to go crazy and cast off the nun’s habit for red lipstick shows her descent into lust and madness in a way. The colors infer meaning here in the way that they did in Ivan the terrible with all the red. You really see the use of color here in suggesting meaning which is such an amazing achievement in opening up the possibility for future filmmakers to create motifs around colors or to lead the audience through a scene using color as indicators of good and bad, doom or salvation, love or loss etc...
The film is also very bold in dealing with the sexual tension under-riding the whole movie. The whole film is an erotic dream a fantasy about nuns in a harem. Sexy schoolgirls basically. And thus the movie is riddled with sexual desire and innuendo.
The shots are vast and incredible in terms of creating depth perception with the painted backdrops. The most notable vantage point is the high angle shot supposedly showing the sheer drop from the bell tower from where the convent sits and seeing the whole valley below all in one shot. It really makes you feel like you're going to fall off that ledge with the nun and foreshadows unfortunately a climatic ending for one of them.