Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town
Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Upheaval
If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.
