🔗 Share this article

Based on the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Bella Kim) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of the city of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between dual heritages. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she loiters uneasily between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Disruption

If not enjoying visually stunning seafood cooked by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a move to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Emotional Landscape and Thematic Depth

Sooha’s buried emotions surface in flashes of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan remains a distant figure, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this imbalance hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit separate from the primary narrative, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and guest, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

The film is available on the streaming service from 7 November.