Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.
