Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town

Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen 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 physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.