Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
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 boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – 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 profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
