Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with details 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. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, 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 seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film is available on Mubi from November 7.
