Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film 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 compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the account 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 surface in bursts of clandestine, 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 details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.
