Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows 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: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details 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 control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on Mubi from November 7.
