Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town

Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract 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.

Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with details of his history. His cipher status, 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 restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.