Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Border City

Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in 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.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff 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 musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

The film is available on Mubi from November 7.