Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
