Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City
Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship 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 lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.
Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth
Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires 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 partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.
Performances and Directorial Approach
The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.
The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.
