Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a Korean Border City

Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded 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 vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, 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. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.