Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.
