Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.
