Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence 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 partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner 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 main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
