Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north 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 father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases 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 missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
