Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Disruption
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.