Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the story 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 Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, 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 7 November.
