🔗 Share this article

Adapted from a novel by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet refreshing film centers on hotel employee Sooha (Bella Kim) as she drives French writer Yan (Roschdy Zem) to the demilitarised zone just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still unborn, trapped between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to accompany the enigmatic author, she lingers uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and complex desire.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying spectacular-looking marine dishes prepared by her fishmonger mother (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an hopeful model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is disrupted when the foreigner takes up residence for a extended visit. Initially matching her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, after an online search, to be critically lauded comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the account 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.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in flashes of clandestine, sinuous moments of physical constraint and release. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan stays a distant figure, upholding his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing plastic surgery on her – is clearly a key theme for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit separate from the main story, like the mysterious bandaged diner also in residence.

Acting and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park Mi-hyeon – give 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 exploring a tactile visual register. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in subjective feelings, Kamura musters an fascinating kind of modern ghost story.

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