Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to prise 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 proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
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, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
