Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
