🔗 Share this article

Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of the city of Sokcho. Symbolism abounds: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between dual heritages. After the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of inspiration, he manages to extract the story of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s buried emotions erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His enigmatic role, as Sooha imposes her desires on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Visual style – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The three focused performances at the centre – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is consistently on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

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