Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing 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: Director 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, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
