Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search 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 subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of 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.
