Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story 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.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
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 thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
