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

Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. Once the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, 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 one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic 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 the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.