🔗 Share this article

Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film follows guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the mysterious author, she lingers uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a move to Seoul. However this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. Initially matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She observes him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in flashes of secret, winding moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with details of his past. His cipher status, 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 parent and partner both advocating cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Fixating on absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura creates an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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