Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract 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 surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.
