Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City

Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to 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 desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored 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 innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from 7 November.