Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
