Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town
Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent 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.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
