Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Family and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy 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 fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.
