Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide 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 emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on Mubi from November 7.
