Sokcho in Winter Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Border City

Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives author from France Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this comfy routine is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Acting and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on the streaming service from November 7.