Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town

Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya 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. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account 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 something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently 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 modern ghost story.

The film is available on Mubi from November 7.