Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from 7 November.
