🔗 Share this article Sokcho in Winter Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Familial Bonds and Closeness in a South Korean Border City Inspired by a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this subtle yet refreshing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s first feature also camps in a liminal space of the spirit, with Sooha, abandoned by her father from France while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. 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 When she’s not digging into spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is relaxing with her boyfriend (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. But this comfy routine is overturned when the foreigner settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her prejudices about rude French men, 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 extract the account of Sooha’s missing father from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely. Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, winding moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness hinders Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s mother and boyfriend both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But despite Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in the guesthouse. Acting and Cinematic Craft The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a tactile visual register. Fixating on emptiness, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of modern ghost story. The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.