Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France 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 liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner 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 critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with details 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. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
