Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite 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 absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
