Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: 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 French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
