The patient sensibilities of Connor Sen Warnick’s Characters Disappearing wouldn’t normally suggest a paranoid political thriller. And yet, his debut feature, with long takes evoking the urban malaise of Tsai Ming-liang, the narrative abstraction of Angela Schanelec, and political dimensions just concrete enough to bear their own weight, could be described as such. Set in 1970s Chinatown, it follows the political and spiritual journeys of two cousins, Mei (Yuka Murakami) and Chris (Warnick), who are grieving the death of their grandfather, while members of a local far-left Chinese-American political group, I Wor Kuen, begin to disappear. But Warnick’s film is not a polemic. If anything, he avoids concrete political analysis in favor of a more personal dimension, inspired by his own experiences of racial hatred and fear-based violence in the early days of the COVID pandemic. What emerges from these contexts is a film of contrasts: extreme stillness interrupted by eruptions of violence; political stridency tempered by spiritual devotion; community eroded by solipsism.
Mei is a member of I Wor Kuen (IWK), which once existed in the dark corners of Warnick’s home neighborhood and whose former members’ testimony provided a foundation for his research before making the film. She lives with her cousin, Chris, in the home of their grandparents, Popo and Gong Gong (Eleanor Yung and Bob Lee, themselves former activists in Chinatown’s political and artistic circles). But when Gong Gong passes away, he leaves behind a rather unusual legacy: his father, a former military leader in China, studied under a monk said to have been 250 years old and seven feet tall, and recorded his spiritual teachings on longevity in a book now in Chris’ possession.
Warnick portrays Chris with committed affectlessness, a kind of internal measuring that keeps his body and soul in a state of calm that borders on indifference. Swallowed up by his great-grandfather’s spiritual observations, Chris begins to fast. Though he seems committed, this newfound spirituality seems less like a calling than a way to occupy his liberal quantities of free time. Popo even asks Chris outright what he wants to do with his life if he’s so determined to prolong it. Crucially, Chris’ new lifestyle feels more like an attempt to slowly erase himself from existence without anyone taking notice. Mei, too, despite her political activism, floats through life, observing disasters unfold in the sober manner of Warnick’s slow cinema style, including: a boyfriend, Leonard (Dylan Breaux), who sleeps around; politically motivated attacks by mysterious groups on meetings and a public film screening; and her best friend’s imminent departure from New York for grad school in California.
Despite its apparent period setting, Warnick avoids dating the film — counterintuitively — by not trying to conceal the modern world that surrounds the film’s production. Cars and buses we recognize as belonging to the 2020s rove the streets of 1970s Chinatown, as do passersby in puffer jackets and face masks (evidence of this film’s production in the latter part of 2022), while Leonard dons a Black Panther cap, large-collared shirt, and leather trench. The costumes are perhaps the only deliberate nod to the 1970s, though, even then, they’re effortless where the costumes in a Hollywood production set in this particular time and place would be meticulous.
Warnick’s approach to period detail, then, expands the possibilities of Characters Disappearing. The presence of a new car on the periphery of the frame is as instructive as the quasi-mythical story of the 250 year-old monk. Chris and Mei’s two-pronged search for meaning also makes the film feel refreshingly contemporary; their problems are not unlike the problems facing young people right now who are looking for efficacious political solutions or slowly losing the war against hopelessness. Together, Warnick’s characters and thematic interests represent a past and present in perpetual conversation.
DIRECTOR: Connor Sen Warnick; CAST: Yuka Murakami, Dylan Breaux, Connor Sen Warnick, Eleanor Yung, Giullian Yao Gioiello; DISTRIBUTOR: Lunette Films; IN THEATERS: July 20; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 24 min.
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