Winter in Sokcho Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Family and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town

Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions 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 stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.