Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in 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 search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding 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 imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy 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 narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
