Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town

Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Upheaval

If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from 7 November.