🔗 Share this article Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Border City Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire. Daily Life and Upheaval When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. Initially matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely. Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with details of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence. Performances and Directorial Approach The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, 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. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story. The film is available on Mubi from 7 November.