Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on 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: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Daily Life and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.