"Warnick's film doesn't hide the reality of how and where he's shooting, much in the way that DP Owen Smith-Clark doesn't hide the 16mm's scratches and grain. Warnick started researching the era that Characters Disappearing places itself in and stumbled upon the I Wor Kuen, a mostly forgotten militant group of communist radicals that operated in NYC's Chinatown half a century ago. That specific radical setting, though, belies Warnick's form and overarching thematic exploration."
"Chris's journey is more demonstrative of the film's form, one of extraordinary patience, restraint and an intentional embrace of ambiguity. Scenes often play out durationally, with Warnick placing his actors in a statuesque mise-en-scene and locked-down composition, with movement predominantly coming from falling leaves, modern cars rushing across the backdrop, or wind in people's hair. While the characters are inhabiting their moment, the modern world seems to spin around them."
Characters Disappearing centers on Mei, a left-wing revolutionary in early 1970s New York Chinatown who embraces militant communist activism connected to the I Wor Kuen. Mei's commitment tensions her relationship with Leonard, a Black man on the community's margins, as she risks life and limb for liberation. A parallel figure, Chris, pursues religious enlightenment through teachings from a two-hundred-fifty-year-old monk, embodying patience, restraint and ambiguity. The film foregrounds 16mm grain and visible scratches and uses statuesque, locked compositions and durational scenes where small movements and modern intrusions make the past haunt the present.
Read at Filmmaker Magazine
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