Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.
