Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker 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 debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence 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 boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
