Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
