Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya 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 unborn, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of 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 three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
