New York City is a living, breathing, paradox. At once individualist and communal, grittily authentic yet glamorous, Connor Sen Warnick explores the city’s competing desires in his feature debut, “Characters Disappearing.” In line with CAAMFest‘s programming gesture towards histories of Asian American movements, this Centerpiece film touches upon the roots of Asian American activist collectives in the late 1960s to early 1970s. Idealistic, existential, and messy all at once, this tribute to New York City illustrates the terribly confusing entanglement that is young adulthood.
“Characters Disappearing” follows the lives of three characters, engaged in interracial relationships: the lusciously-maned Mei (Yuka Murakami), the frequently half-naked Leonard (Dylan Lowther), and the ambiguously-directed Chris (played by the director himself). Here, they all struggle to find themselves. Mei and Leonard are actively engaged in what seems to be a loving, long-term relationship, though Leonard frequently finds himself in the beds of other women. Chris retreats into a completely ascetic mode, resorting to an going diet of breathing and puking to find his inner voice. At the same time, the three of them orbit the many contradictions of New York: one day involved in leftist underground meetings in Chinatown, another day eating dinner with parents, and yet another, dreaming aloud of heteronormative monogamy, the three both comply to and resist their societal expectations constantly. In the chaos that consists of New York City, all three characters try to have their cake, and eat it, too.
Stories about young people floating along the streets of The Empire City in search of themselves is not new. The use of celluloid may have viewers recalling the grayscale existentialism of Noam Baumbach’s “Frances Ha” (2012), or the many Instagram parodies of the typical Brooklyn hipster. In contrast, Warnick attempts to create an earnest portrait of a tripartite character study, stuck in a timeless dilemma between community and self. (And perhaps, this is even accentuated in the act of inserting himself so prominently within the trio.)
It is precisely this narcissism that makes this film so goofy, however. Warnick’s vision – while articulate – is still highly unrefined, and profoundly shallow. The film reads as a fever dream nightmare of the conservative right in its appeals to “edginess” or “political correctness.” Two Blasian couplings come together and fall apart; Chris totally forgoes food to find himself; Mei loses herself in the movies in an effort to preserve her own “authenticity.” From here, it is hard to tell how much the camerawork is part and parcel of this double-edged sword. While most of the film is shot on a tripod – the takes are long and still at once – and framed poetically, many of the shots remain low-fidelity and out-of-focus. In a previous interview, Warnick says this deliberate, calling it “the cinema of absence.” Some may call it artistic; others may definitely pin it as amateur.
In a way, the film leaves its intentions open to interpretation. Is it a satire of political performance? Does it document the present or the past? In some ways, it’s neither, yet both, all at once. What becomes clear is the almost laughable extremities of political performance that Warnick is willing to show. In one scene, a member of the Green Berets suggests swapping partners in the name of “community”; in another, a community theater hosts a cringe “bachelor contest” against the backdrop of a low-budget stage. These, in addition to the over-the-top hipster costuming (which is indeed, horrifically familiar in try-hard circles in the outer Boroughs of the city today) show startlingly accurate portrayals of the strange nexus that is political performance of solidarity in the Global North.
Overall, “Characters Disappearing” walks the fine line between “try hard woke” and “satire.” For a strong directorial vision such as this, the question of performance now just comes down to how seriously the director might take themselves. For Warnick, the extraordinary earnestness makes it difficult not to place it within the latter.
“Characters Disappearing” will make its world premiere in San Francisco at CAAMFest 2025 on May 10, 2025.
