Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Border City
Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.
Everyday Existence and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from 7 November.
