Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching 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 inspiration, he manages to extract 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 proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation 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 past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
