Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film 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. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
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 relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent 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 erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
