🔗 Share this article Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burn Story of Familial Bonds and Intimacy in a South Korean Border City Adapted from the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing film follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction. Daily Life and Upheaval If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared 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 takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or something else. Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence. Acting and Directorial Approach The trio of strong acts at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale. The film can be seen on Mubi from November 7.