Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases 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 succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.