Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City

Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to 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 the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.