Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, 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 history. His enigmatic role, 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 control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
