Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders 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. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
