Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
