Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in 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 surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape 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, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered 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 hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.
