Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director 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 in utero, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
