Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.
