Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes 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 advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.
