Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya 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, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to prise the story 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, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film is available on Mubi from November 7.
