Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town

Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

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 boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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