Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story 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.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
