Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
