🔗 Share this article

Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between strained companionship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood cooked by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a long-term stay. Initially conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her internal world, though; Yan stays a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and stingy with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her desires 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 partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura can’t quite narratively contain the cautious standoff between hotelier and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.