Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps 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 French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned 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 acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.
