Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.
