Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide 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 exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on Mubi from November 7.
