Winter in Sokcho Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. 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 pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
