Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Family and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance 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 evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
The film is available on Mubi from November 7.
