Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably 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 (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search 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 proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.
