Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss 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: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.
