Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
