Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Disruption
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.
