Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Family and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
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 aiming for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – 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 profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
