Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
