Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains 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 deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.
