Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, 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.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
