Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Border City

Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a liminal space 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 forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices 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 manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father 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 Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

The film is available on Mubi from November 7.