Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
