Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town

Inspired by 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 (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature 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. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on 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, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems 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 centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.