Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) 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 soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, 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 surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
