🔗 Share this article Winter in Sokcho Review: A Moody Slow-Burn Tale of Family and Closeness in a South Korean Frontier Town Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire. Daily Life and Upheaval If not enjoying visually stunning seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in 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 something else. Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence. Acting and Directorial Approach The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story. The film is available on Mubi from November 7.