Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, 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. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
