Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from 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 (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind 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 tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, 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 main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
