Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town

Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he manages to extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, 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 tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.