Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, 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 control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
