Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town
Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
