Winter in Sokcho Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. 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 past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
