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

Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (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 settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – 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 secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.