Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
