🔗 Share this article Sokcho in Winter Analysis: A Moody Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Closeness in a Korean Border City Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the mysterious author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire. Daily Life and Disruption If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely. Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is clearly a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence. Performances and Cinematic Craft The three focused performances at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park Mi-hyeon – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of succumb in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of modern ghost story. The film is available on Mubi from November 7.