Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff 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 musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.
