Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.