Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. 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 pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, 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 hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
