Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood 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 Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise 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 another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.
