Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the story 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 another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
