Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story 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.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
