Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father 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 subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
