A Single Tear
2004 · 1m · Canada
Directed by Amy Lockhart
Genres: adventure, animation, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, surreal, whimsical
A whimsical animated fairy tale follows an epic adventure through a magical world built from cutouts, drawings and collage, with environmental themes woven into its fantasy quest.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A whimsical fairy tale with environmental themes is exactly the kind of consensus-pleaser that makes me suspicious—until you realize the mixed-media collage construction is doing the thematic work, literally building a world from scraps and fragments, which is genuinely unsettling beneath the cuteness.
Lockhart's decision to compose the fantastical world from cutouts, drawings, and collage isn't decorative—it's a formal argument about how narrative and material form intertwine, positioning the film within a lineage of animation that treats technique as meaning.
The whole film hinges on that single choice to build the world from mixed media rather than pure animation—suddenly every frame becomes a small act of resourceful construction, where the economy of means becomes the film's actual subject.