Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. 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. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.
Acting 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 solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film is available on Mubi from November 7.
