Winter in Sokcho Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Family and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north 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 father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.
