Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
