Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the account 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.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
