Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
