Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City

Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded 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 observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.