Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning 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 the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – 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 bursts of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.
