Sokcho in Winter 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 refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.
Performances and Cinematic Craft
The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
