🔗 Share this article Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a 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 drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction. Daily Life and Disruption If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise 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 another figure entirely. Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with details of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in the guesthouse. Acting and Directorial Approach The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale. The film is available on Mubi from November 7.