Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, winding 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 projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.
