Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to 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 succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.
