Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, 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 boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
