Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, 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 another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
