Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably 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 (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account 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 something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
