Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
