Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit 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 another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed 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 in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.
