Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town

Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. However this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.