Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a Korean Frontier Town

Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires 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 pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.