🔗 Share this article

Inspired by the book by Korean-Swiss writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing drama follows guesthouse worker 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 camps in a liminal space of the soul, with Sooha, left behind by her father from France while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the francophone hostess is compelled to chaperone the enigmatic author, she loiters uncomfortably between tetchy friendship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Disruption

When she’s not digging into visually stunning marine dishes cooked by her fishmonger mother (Mi-hyeon Park), Sooha is lolling about with her partner (Do-yu Gong), an aspiring model aiming for a relocation to Seoul. However this familiar rhythm is overturned when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he proves, on Googling him, to be acclaimed comic book writer Yan Kerrand. Arriving in Sokcho in pursuit of inspiration, he succeeds in extract the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a air duct – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a surrogate parent, or another figure entirely.

Emotional Landscape and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings surface in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of bodily suffocation and release. We witness only her inner life, though; Yan stays a remote presence, insisting on his loner ethic and stingy with details of his history. His cipher status, as Sooha imposes her needs on to him, is deliberate – but this imbalance prevents Winter in Sokcho from reaching its full potential. Aesthetic expression – and restraint, with Sooha’s parent and partner both advocating plastic surgery on her – is evidently a key theme for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it seems a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the enigmatic wrapped guest also in the guesthouse.

Performances and Cinematic Craft

The trio of strong acts at the centre – an almost hostile Roschdy Zem, increasingly scattered Bella Kim, and the self-absorbed Park – provide Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between innkeeper and visitor, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over emptiness, threatening to succumb in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho is available on Mubi from November 7.