🔗 Share this article

Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the francophone hostess is compelled to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Everyday Existence and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning seafood prepared by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a move to the capital. But this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider takes up residence for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet despite Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, increasingly scattered Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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