Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Story of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Border City
Based on a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives 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, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.
Daily Life and Upheaval
When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes 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 buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence.
Acting and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.
