Michael Aubtin Madadi’s bittersweet film of lost opportunities and faded dreams uses a variety of elements, and the language of myth, to produce a deeply affecting thought-provoking animation. Two solitary characters – the world’s saddest man on a mountain, and a woman in a field of blooms – briefly come together, before parting forever. Tear Drops Blossom is about the end of things and the beginning of things; it points to the cyclical yet fragile uncertainty of human existence and creativity. On one level it could be seen as a simple yin and yang fable about the necessity for complementary forces; on another, the slight, deliberate awkwardness of the cut-out characters reminds us of our own inner fears of loneliness and isolation.

A self-taught animator, Madadi’s elegant style fuses his talents as an illustrator and painter with the precision and rigour of animation. For this charming handmade production, the direct-camera approach offered him maximum flexibility and fluidity for the pans, tilts and gentle zooms that he employs to reveal the story played out against a large, layered setting. One of the many delights in the film is the look and movement of the watercolour teardrops as they rain down and transform from meteor-like gems, first into a shower of petals, and then into a blanket of flowers. Another is the almost-saccharine music box soundtrack; the background scratch of vinyl adds an ethereal edge that is far removed from the pristine clarity and tricksy knowingness of much current animation.

From the start, this dreamy metaphysical animation hooks you in with its innocent images and contemplative pacing, which is then finely counterbalanced by the carefully written enigmatic text. Towards the end of the film, we follow a single teardrop as it descends to earth and revives a faded flower, emotionally recalling a film from a very different genre, Powell and Pressburger’s delightful heaven and earth fantasy A Matter of Life and Death (1946), in which a young woman’s tears are collected on a flower and used as evidence in a celestial trial for a young pilot's soul. In both films, tears forcefully represent the power of love. The disarming power of Tear Drops Blossom lies in its direct and fearless sense of humanity.

Karen Alexander is an independent film curator, writer and freelance consultant. She has contributed articles to publications including Sight & Sound and Vertigo. As a cinema programmer she has organised a wide range of screenings and packages for festivals, conferences and exhibition. Her key areas of interest include representation, gender, identity and independent cinema. From 1998-2006 she worked at the BFI, with responsibility for the strategic marketing of the BFI's ambitious slate of Distribution and Archive releases.