🔗 Share this article Sokcho in Winter Analysis: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Story of Family and Intimacy in a South Korean Frontier Town Adapted from a novel by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire. Daily Life and Upheaval If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about rude French men, he turns out, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he manages to prise 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 proxy father, or another figure entirely. Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in flashes of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s parent and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence. Acting and Cinematic Craft The three focused performances at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale. Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.