Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
