Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: 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 in utero, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
