🔗 Share this article Winter in Sokcho Review: An Atmospheric Slow-Burning Tale of Family and Intimacy in a Korean Frontier Town Adapted from the book by Swiss-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin, this subtle yet bracing film centers on guesthouse worker Sooha (Kim Bella) as she escorts French writer Yan (Zem Roschdy) to the DMZ just north of Sokcho. Metaphor alert: Koya Kamura’s debut film also resides in a no man’s land of the soul, with Sooha, abandoned by her French father while she was still unborn, caught between two cultures. After the French-speaking employee is forced to chaperone the mysterious author, she loiters uncomfortably between strained companionship and complex desire. Daily Life and Upheaval If not enjoying spectacular-looking seafood prepared by her mother who sells fish (Park Mi-hyeon), Sooha is lolling about with her boyfriend (Gong Do-yu), an hopeful model gunning for a move to Seoul. But this familiar rhythm is disrupted when the outsider settles in for a extended visit. At first matching her biases about rude French men, he proves, on Googling him, to be critically lauded graphic novelist Yan Kerrand. Coming to Sokcho in search of creative fuel, he succeeds in extract the account of Sooha’s absent parent from her. She spies on him through a vent – but the question lingers whether he’s a proxy father, or another figure entirely. Inner Turmoil and Thematic Depth Sooha’s buried emotions surface in bursts of clandestine, winding moments of bodily suffocation and liberation. We are privy to only her inner life, though; Yan remains a remote presence, upholding his loner ethic and sparing with particulars of his past. His cipher status, as Sooha projects 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 pushing cosmetic surgery on her – is evidently a central idea for Kamura. But in spite of Yan’s profession, it feels a bit adjacent to the primary narrative, like the mysterious wrapped guest also in residence. Performances and Directorial Approach The three focused performances at the core – an almost hostile Zem, progressively unmoored Bella Kim, and the self-involved Park – give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura doesn't fully thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and visitor, he is consistently on his toes in terms of feeling, often exploring a physical, sensory imagery. Obsessing over absence, on the verge of drown in internal sensations, Kamura creates an fascinating kind of modern ghost story. The film is available on the streaming service from November 7.