Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract 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 proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires 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 clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, 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.