Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, 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 story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
