Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness 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 clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
