Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise 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 something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents 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 central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
