Winter in Sokcho Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. After 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 spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on 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 imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.
