Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires 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 clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.
