Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.
Everyday Existence and Disruption
If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. Initially matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to prise the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.
Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems 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 centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.
Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.
