Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, 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 prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
