Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
