Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burning Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City

Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars 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 reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse.

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 – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.