Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. However 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 proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the centre – 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 thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
