Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to 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 creative fuel, he manages to extract 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 surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.
