Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town
Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.
