🔗 Share this article

Based on the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on the streaming service from November 7.