🔗 Share this article

Inspired by the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Dusapin, this elusive yet bracing drama follows hotel employee Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts author from France Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Director Kamura's first feature also camps in a no man’s land of the spirit, with Sooha, left behind by her French father while she was still in utero, caught between two cultures. Once the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the enigmatic author, she lingers uneasily between strained companionship and Oedipal attraction.

Daily Life and Upheaval

If not enjoying visually stunning marine dishes prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is relaxing with her partner (Gong Do-yu), an aspiring model gunning for a relocation to the capital. However this comfy routine is overturned when the outsider settles in for a long-term stay. At first conforming to her biases about impolite Frenchmen, he turns out, after an online search, to be acclaimed graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in pursuit of creative fuel, he succeeds in prise the story of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She observes him through a vent – but it remains to be seen whether he’s a proxy father, or something else.

Inner Turmoil and Symbolic Layers

Sooha’s subterranean feelings erupt in bursts of secret, sinuous moments of physical constraint and liberation. We are privy to only her internal world, though; Yan remains a distant figure, insisting on his solitary principles and sparing with particulars of his history. His enigmatic role, as Sooha projects her needs on to him, is intentional – but this one-sidedness prevents Winter in Sokcho from fully opening up. Aesthetic expression – and control, with Sooha’s parent and partner both pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. Yet in spite of Yan’s vocation, it seems a bit adjacent to the main story, like the enigmatic bandaged diner also in residence.

Performances and Directorial Approach

The trio of strong acts at the core – an nearly aggressive Roschdy Zem, progressively unmoored Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its emotional anchor, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the cautious standoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes in terms of feeling, often dipping into a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, threatening to drown in internal sensations, Kamura musters an intriguing kind of contemporary phantom tale.

Winter in Sokcho can be seen on Mubi from November 7.