Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land 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 mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
