Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Family and Closeness in a Korean Border City
Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, 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 control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
