Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.
