Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.
