Winter in Sokcho Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, 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.
